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DISCUSSIONS 



m HISTORY AND THEOLOGY 



By GEORGE P. FISHEE, D.D., LL.D., 

TITFS 8TEEET PR0FE3S0E OF EOCLESIASTIOAL HISTOBY IN YALE COUUEqB 



I) 

NEW YORK 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

743 AND 745 Broadway 
1880 



<^ 



CJOFIBIGHT BY 

0HAELE3 SCRIBNER'S SONS. 



TkOW'8 

Pbintino and Bookbinding Company, 
;;J01-813 East Twelfth Street, 

HEW YOBK. 



TO 

MY MOTHER 

THIS VOLTJME IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED. 



G. P. P. 



PREFACE. 



The Essays which are collected in this volume, with a few 
exceptions, may be classified under three heads. 

The first group, beginning with the second Essay, com- 
prises Papers which relate to the history, polity and dogmas ^ 
of the Koman Catholic Church. The Church of Home has 
lately undergone two changes of great moment. The 
principality which the Pontiii's had ruled for a thousand 
years, has fallen from their grasp and been absorbed in the 
new kingdom of Italy ; and the infallibility and supreme 
" power of jurisdiction" of the Pope have been defined by 
conciliar decree. These new aspects of the Roman Catho- 
lic system, in their historical relations, and in their bearings 
on religion and civil society, are among the topics here 
considered. How the genius and religion of ancient Pome 
reappear in characteristic features of Latin Christianity^ 
is the subject of one of the Discussions in this series. 

The second group of Essays relates to l!^ew England ^ 
theology. Jonathan Edwards was the pioneer in a move- 
ment which was carried forward by a succession of theo- 
logical leaders after him, and involved important modifica- 
tions in the philosophy of Calvinism. The character of 
this movement — the most original in the history of Ameri- 



V 



VI PKEFACE. 

can theology — and the peculiarities of the principal cory- 
phaei of the IS'ew England school, I have attempted impar- 
tially to describe. While Calvinism took this turn, out of 
the old Arminianism — which withstood the revivalism of 
Edwards and Whitefield — in conjunction with other in- 
fluences, Ilnitarianism sprang up, in its various types and 
with its different offshoots. This branch of the religious 
history of Kew England is the subject of the Paper on 
Charming. 

The third division pertains to Theism and Christian 
Evidences. In the Essay on Rationalism, the defining 
characteristic of the rationalistic theory, and its radical as- 
sumption, are pointed out, and a place is vindicated for the 
principle of authority in religion. The discourse on Atheism 
indicates, without elaborately developing, points of argu- 
ment which appear to me to constitute valid grounds of 
faith in the personality of God. In the Essay on the 
Apostle Paul, the threads, intellectual and spiritual, which 
connect the two portions of his career — separated from one 
another by the crisis of his conversion — are brought to light, 
and comments are made on observations of Penan and of 
Matthew Arnold. The Peview of Sitpernatural Religion 
examines the most noteworthy reproduction, in English 
literature, of the modern attack by the Tubingen criticism 
upon the genuineness of the canonical Gospels. 

Among the Essays not included in this classification, one 
has for its object to trace to its origin the Massacre of St. 
Bartholomew's Eve, and to sketch the rise and progress of 
the civil wars in Erance, down to that epoch ; a second 
aims to set forth the history of the doctrine of future pun- 
ishment in the church — in particular, the opinions and 



PREFACE. Vll 

arguments of modern theologians on that subject ; a third 
describes the position taken by the Church of England m 
reference to other Protestant Churches, in the age of the 
Reformation and subsequently. In the dissertation last 
mentioned, the relations of the Protestant leaders to one an- 
other in the different European countries, in the sixteenth 
century, are incidentally exhibited. 

G. P. F. 
New Haven, March 30, 1880. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGB 

The Massacre of St. Bartholomew 1 



The Influence of the Old Roman Spirit and Religion on 

Latin Christianity ^ 34 



The Temporal Kingdom of the Popes i 68 

The Council of Constance and the Council of the Vatican.. 101 

The Office of the Pope and how he is Chosen 141 

The Relation of Protestantism and of Romanism to Modern 
Civilization 161 

The Relation of the Church of England to the other Pro- 
testant Bodies 176 

The Philosophy op Jonathan Edwards 227 

Channing as a Philosopher and Theologian 253 

The System op Dr. N. W. Taylor in its Connection with 
Prior New England Theology 285 

The Augustinian and the Federal Doctrines op Original 

Sin 355 



X CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

A Sketch op the History op the Doctrine op Future Pun- 
ishment 410 

Rationalism 439 

The Unreasonableness op Atheism 468 

The Apostle Paul 487 

The Four Gospels : A Review of " Supernatural Religion." 512 



DISCUSSIONS. 



THE MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW.* 

Feance, in the age when Protestantism was spreading in 
Europe, found herself in a place where two seas met. If 
the ship of state did not go to pieces, like the vessel which 
threw St. Paul npon the coast of Malta, it had to struggle 
through a long and frightful tempest from which it barely 
escaped. In the other European countries the situation was 
different. There was intestine discord, but not to the same 
extent ; or with consequences less ruinous. 

In Germany, the central authority was too weak to coerce 
the Lutheran states. The war undertaken by Charles Y. 
for that purpose was brief, and comparatively bloodless. 
The final issue was the freedom of the Protestants for a 
long period, until imperial fanaticism, in the early part of 
the seventeenth century, brought on the terrible Thirty 
Years' War, which exhausted what was left of the vitality 
of the German Empire, and ended in the establishment of 
Protestant liberties at the Peace of Westphalia (1648). In 
England, as late as Elizabeth's reign, not less than one-half 
the population preferred the old Church ; but in the wars of 
the Roses, the nobles had been decimated, and regal author- 
ity strengthened ; and the iron will of the Tudor sovereigns, 
Henry YIII. and Elizabeth, coupled with an inbred hatred 
of foreign rule, ecclesiastical and secular, and supported by 

* An Article in The New Englander for January, 1880. 



ji THE MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW. 

the fervent love of a great party to the Protesant faith, kept 
the nation on one path, and stifled various attempts at insur- 
rection, which might otherwise have blazed up in civil war. 
In Scotland, the league of the nobles with the reformers, aided 
by the follies of Mary Stuart, proved strong enough to uphold 
against the opposing faction the revolution which had made 
Calvinism the legal religion of the country. In Sweden, 
Protestantism speedily triumphed under the popular dynas- 
ty erected by Gustavus Yasa. In the Netherlands, tliere 
was a fierce battle continued for the greater part of a cen- 
tury; but the contest of Holland was against Spain, to 
throw off the yoke that she was determined to fasten upon 
that persecuted and unconquerable race. In Italy and in 
the Spanish peninsula. Protestantism did not gain strengi:h 
enough to stand against the revived fanaticism of its adver- 
sary, and was swept away, root and branch. 

In general, it may be said that in the north, among the 
peoples of the Teutonic stock, the preponderance was so 
greatly on the side of the Protestants, that the shock occa- 
sioned by the collision of opposing parties was weakened 
and unity was preserved ; while in the south, among the 
Komanic peoples below the Alps and the Pyrenees, the 
Catholic cause had a like predominance m a much greater 
degree, and overwhelmed all opposition. But, as for France, 
she stood midway between the two mighty currents of opin- 
ion. Her people belonged, in theii' lineage and tongue, to 
the Latin race ; but they had somewhat more of German 
blood in their veins than their brethren in the south, and — 
what is much more important — ^by their geographical situ- 
ation, previous history, and culture, they were made much 
more sensitive to the infiuences of what was then modern 
thouo^ht. 

Yet, France was a powerful and compact monarchy, and 
seemed better able than any other country to breast the 
storm. On the 1st of July, 987, Hugh Capet, Count of 
Paris, elected king by an assembly of nobles, superseded the 



THE MASSACRE OF ST. BAETHOLOMEW. 3 

foreign Carlovingian line, and was crowned at Kheims. 
From him all the later kings of France — the Bonaparte 
nsnrpers alone excepted — the direct Capetian line, the Yalois, 
Bourbon, and Orleans monarchs, down to the abdication of 
Louis Philippe, are sprung.* Out of the dominion of Hugh 
Capet, the small district known as the Isle of France, of 
which Paris was the centre, there was built up in the course 
of centuries, by the accretion of feudal territories, bj lucky 
marriages, by treaties or conquest, the modern kingdom of 
France. The wars with England which went on, with many 
intervals, for 250 years — from the end of the twelfth cen- 
tury to the middle of the fifteenth — resulted at the end of 
this period, largely through the heroic deeds of Joan of Arc, 
in the expulsion of the English from every place except the 
single town of Calais. Normandy, Guienne, and all the 
other territories which had been held by the victors of 
Creey, Poitiers and Agincourt, who were more than once 
the almost undisputed masters of France, fell back to their 
native and rightful owners. Toward the close of the fif- 
teenth century, the crafty policy of Louis XL effected the 
downfall of Charles the Bold, and secured to France the 
Duchy of Burgundy. From the King of Aragon he ac- 
quired, on the south, the counties of Roussillon and Cer- 
dagne, the last of which was permanently incorporated in 
France. Anjou, Maine, and Provence reverted to him 
from the house of Anjou, together with the claims of that 
family upon l^aples. Charles YIIL, son of Louis XL, mar- 
ried Anne, the heiress of Brittany, and so this fine province 
was added to the jewels of the French Crown. 

Francis L, who ascended the throne in 1515, two years 
before the posting of Luther's theses, had a consolidated 
kingdom powerful enough to enable him, a few years later, 
to cope on equal terms with his rival, Charles Y. At home, 



* The Valois line begins with Philip VI. (1338) ; the Bourbon with 
Henry IV. (1589) ; the Orleans with Louia Philippe (1830). 



4 THE MASSACRE OF ST. BAKTH0L0:MEW. 

he could set at defiance the will of his parliaments, ajid aug- 
ment his authority through the Concordat with Pope Leo 
X., which secured to the king the power of filling by nomi- 
nation the great ecclesiastical benefices in his realm. Dur- 
ing the thirty-two years of his reign, and the twelve years' 
reign of his son and successor, Henry II., the Protestants 
could offer only a passive resistance to the persecution which 
was instigated and managed by the Sorbonne — the Faculty 
of Theology at Paris — and which found myriads of brutal 
agents throughout the land. Francis, and Henry after him, 
with one arm aided the German Lutherans in their contest 
with Charles Y., and with the other crushed their French 
brethren of the same faith. '' One king, one law, one faith," 
was the motto. There must be one and only one religion 
tolerated in the realm. Yet Protestantism, notwithstand- 
ing its long roll of martyrs, and partly by means of them, 
had gained a firm foothold before the death of Henry H. 

The revival of learning, which in other countries paved 
the wav for the reform in relio:ion, was not without its natu- 
ral fi'uit in France. Francis himself was proud of being 
called the Father of Letters ; cherished the ideas of Erasmus ; 
founded the college of the three languages at Paris, in spite 
of the disgust and hostility of the doctors of theology, the 
champions of medisevalism ; drew to his side from beyond 
the Alps men like Leonardo da Yinci, scholars and artists ; 
protected his sister Margaret in her Protestant predilections ; 
and contributed not a little, indirectly, notwithstanding his 
occasional cruelties, to the diffusion of the new doctrine. 
Henry 11. was more of a bigot ; but he followed his father's 
policy of joining hands with the Protestant communities of 
Germany, in opposition to Charles. 

The first converts to the Reformation in France were 
Lutherans ; but Lutheranism was supplanted by the other 
principal type of Protestantism. Calvinism was more con- 
genial to the French mind. Calvin was himself one of the 
most acute and cultivated of the Frenchmen of that age. 



THE MASSACRE OF ST. BAKTHOLOMEW. 5 

Driven from his country, lie continued to act upon it from 
Geneva with incalculable power. Geneva became to France 
what Wittenberg was to Germany. The lucid, logical, con- 
sistent character of the system of Calvin commended it to 
the French mind. The intense moral earnestness and strict 
ethical standard of that system attracted a multitude who 
were shocked by the almost unexampled profligacy of the 
age. Among the higher classes, and still more among the 
industrious and intelligent middle classes, the Calvinistic 
faith had numerous devoted adherents. In 1559 the Cal- 
vinists held their first national synod at Paris. Their places 
of worship, scattered over France, numbered at that time 
two thousand ; and in their congregations were four hundred 
thousand worshippers, all of whom met at the risk of their 
lives. That same year, Henry 11. , who had just agreed with 
Philip n., in the treaty of Cateau-Cambresis, to exterminate 
heresy, and to give his daughter in marriage to the Spanish 
monarch, was accidentally killed by a splinter from the lance 
of Montgomery, the captain of his guards, with whom he 
was tilting at the festival in honor of the wedding. 

The whole posture of affairs was now changed. His old- 
est son, Francis H., was a boy of sixteen, feeble in mind and 
body. He was not young enough to be made subject to a 
regency ; and too young, had he been possessed of talents 
and character, to rule. Who should govern France ? Cath- 
erine de Medici, the widow of Henry ; she to whom, more 
than any other individual, as we shall see, the massacre of 
St. Bartholomew was due, thought that the power for which 
she had long waited was now within her grasp. The grand- 
daughter of the great Lorenzo de Medici, and the daughter 
of Lorenzo II., she was left an orphan in her infancy, and 
was placed in a convent. Her childhood was encompassed 
with perils. When her uncle. Pope Clement YIL, was lay- 
ing siege to Florence, in 1630, she being only twelve years 
old, the council of the city proposed to hang her in a basket 
over the waU, as a mark for the besiegers' cannon. About 



6 THE MASSACEE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW. 

ten years after, she was married to Henry, the second son 
of Francis I., in pursuance of an arrangement between the 
Pope and the king, which grew mainly out of the king's 
want of money. The death of the Dauphin placed her hus- 
band within one step of the throne. She was obliged to pay 
obsequious cornet to the mistresses of the king and of her 
husband, the Duchess D'Etampes and Diana of Poitiers. 
Henry regarded her with a feeling little short of repugnance. 
Under this feelmg, and disappointed that she bore him no 
children, he entertained, at one time, the thought of sending 
her back to Italy. This was prevented by her own submis- 
sive demeanor, and by the favor of Francis I. Later, after 
the birth of her children, her situation became more toler- 
able. She professed to be utterly devoted to her husband, 
mourned his death with real or affected grief, and would 
never ride or drive near the spot where he received the fatal 
wound. 

Catherine de Medici is generally considered an execrable 
character, an impersonation of the principle of wickedness 
such as rarely appears on earth, especially in a female form. 
History has put her in the pillory among monsters of iniqui- 
ty, like Domitian, J^ero, Csesar Borgia, enemies and destroy- 
ers of their kind. It is hardly possible to dispute the justice 
of this verdict. Yet she was not destitute of attractive quali- 
ties. On the ceiling of a room in the old Bm-gundian cha- 
teau at Tan] ay, Catherine is painted as Juno, with two faces, 
one of which is described as " masculine and sinister," while 
the other is full of " sweetness and dignity." She might 
seem to have a dual nature. Her complexion was olive, be- 
speaking her Italian bii'th. She had the large eyes peculiar 
to the Medici family. Her hand and arm are said to have 
been "the despair of the sculptor," so faultless was their 
model. She was of medium height, large, but compactly 
made. Her figure was admired even in middle life. She 
required and was capable of the most vigorous out-of-door 
exercise. In the chase she dashed on through stream and 



THE MASSACRE OF ST. BAETHOLOMEW. 7 

thicket, keeping up with the boldest riders. Then she would 
give herself up with a hearty appetite to the pleasures of the 
table ; but she arose from it to apply herself with untiring 
energy to business. Her manners were lively and gracious ; 
her conversation full of spirit and intelligence. She has left 
behind numerous monuments of her taste in architecture — 
the palace of the Tuileries owed its beginning to her. Her 
versatility and tact were equal to any emergency. Her let- 
ters to her children are those of a sympathetic mother. She 
was personally chaste, little as she valued chastity in others. 
But at the core, as Milton says of Belial, all was false and 
hollow. It was the grace of the leopard, serving as a veil 
for its ferocity. Beneath exterior accomplishments, and 
charms even^ was a nature devoid of moral sense. She was 
swift to shed blood, when a selfish end required it. But 
falsehood, and the treachery that springs fi'om it, was her 
most loathsome trait. 

To comprehend the possibility of such a character, we 
must remember the spirit of the age, and the atmosphere in 
which she grew up. In the famous church of Santa Croce, 
at Florence, where are the sepulchres of Michael Angelo, 
Galileo, Alfieri, and the cenotaph of Dante, the attention of 
the visitor is arrested by an impressive epitaph. High up on 
the smooth face of a marble monument stands the name 
NicoLAus Machiavelli. Below, where the inscription would 
naturally come, there is a broad space left untouched by the 
chisel ; beneath which are carved the w^ords : " Tanto nomi- 
ni nullurfhjpar elogiuin^'' — "To so a great a name no eulogy 
is adequate ; " as if the pen had been dropped in despair, for 
want of words commensurate with the genius and merits of 
the statesman, scholar, and historian, whose name had been 
recorded. Yet the word "Machiavellian" has become a 
current term to denote knavish intrigue, double-dealing, and 
fraud. It would be unjust to Machiavelli to brand him as 
the inventor of the ethical code which he has set forth in 
" The Prince." This work, which was written for Lorenzo, 



8 THE MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW. 

the father of Catherine, deliberately advises rulers to break 
their word, whenever they find it convenient to do so. It 
presents a fair picture of that base public morality of the 
fifteenth century, which had grown up in the conflicts of the 
Italian States, and under the eye of the Popes, some of 
whom were its notorious exemplars. The Machiavellian 
spii'it tainted the public men of the sixteenth century ; in 
some degree, the best of them, as William the Silent, and 
the Regent Murray of Scotland. As for assassination — that 
in Italy had been almost reduced to a fine art. The grand- 
father of Catherine, Lorenzo I., barely escaped from a mur- 
derous attempt, which proved fatal to his brother Julian, 
who fell under the dagger of an assassin before the high 
altar of the cathedral of Florence, during the celebration of 
mass — Pope Sixtus IV. being, probably, the chief contriver 
of the plot. Catherine de Medici was an Italian woman, 
born and nurtured under the influences that then prevailed, 
constrained from childhood to cloak her thoughts and im- 
pulses, and developing, under the unhappy circumstances in 
which she was placed prior to the death of her husband, the 
cleverness and cunning that belonged to her nature. She 
was destined to be the mother of three kings of France, and 
fo play a conspicuous and baleful part in a most eventful 
period of French history. 

At the accession of Francis II., the Queen Mother natu- 
rally felt that the hour for the gratification of her ambition 
had arrived. But she was disappointed. She found that the 
king and his government were completely under the sway 
of the family of Guise, in the person of Duke Francis, and 
of his brother Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine — the knight and 
the priest, the lion and the fox united. Claude of Lorraine, 
their father, was an opulent and influential noble, who had 
distinguished himseK in the wars against Charles Y. His 
son Francis, who was now forty years of age, had acquired 
briUiant fame by his defence of Metz against the Emperor, 
whom he forced to raise the siege after a loss of 30,000 



THE MASSACRE OF ST. BAETHOLOMEW. 9 

men, and also by tlie recent capture of Calais fi-om the Eng- 
lish. The Cardinal had been the confessor and trusted coun- 
sellor of Henry II. The power of the family had been in- 
creased by matrimonial connections. Their brother had 
married a daughter of Diana of Poitiers. Their niece, 
Mary Stuart, the daughter of James Y. of Scotland, had, 
in the preceding year, when she was sixteen years old, mar- 
ried Francis II., who was about a year younger than herself. 
Her beauty, her tact, accomplishments, and energy, were 
cast on the side of the Guise influence. With her aid, her 
uncles found no difiiculty in managing the boy-king. ' Cath- 
erine was obliged to stand back, and yield up the station 
that she had long coveted. The Constable Montmorenci, 
who, with his numerous relatives, had shared power with 
the Guises in the last reign, was civilly dismissed fi'om his 
post. 

The Guises, in whose hands everything was practically 
left, set themselves up as the champions of the Roman 
Catholic cause, and the enemies of the Protestant heresy. 
But their path was not to be a smooth one. The princes of 
the house of Bourbon — descendants of a younger son of 
Louis IX., St. Louis of France — considered that they were 
robbed of their legitimate post at the side of the throne. 
Anthony of Yendome, the eldest, was the husband of that 
noble Protestant woman, Jeanne D'Albret, the daughter of 
Margaret, the sister of Francis L, and through his marriage 
wore the title of King of ^N^avarre. He proved a vacillating 
and selfish adherent of the Protestant party, which he at 
length was bribed to desert. His younger brother, Louis of 
Conde, who had married a niece of the Constable, and a de- 
voted Protestant, was a gallant soldier, but rash in counsel. 
With the Bourbons stood the Chatillons, the sons of Louisa 
of Montmorenci, the Constable's sister ; of whom the most 
eminent was the Admiral, Gaspard de Coligny, one of the 
greatest men of that or of any age. He was of middle 
height, with his head slightly bent forward as if in deep 



10 THE MASSACEE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW. 

thoTight. His spacious forehead reminds one of the por- 
traits of William the Silent, to whom in character he had 
many points of resemblance. He spoke little, and slowly. 
In battle, his grave countenance lighted up, and he was ob- 
served to chew the toothpick, which, to the disgust of a class 
of courtiers, he habitually carried in his mouth. Frequent- 
ly defeated, he reaped hardly less renown from defeats than' 
from victories. He rose from them with unabated vigor. 
His constancy never wavered in the darkest hour. He em- 
braced the Calvinistic faith ; and whether in the court, the 
camp, or among his dependents on his own estate, his con- 
duct was strictly governed by the principles of religion. 
His reserve and gravity, in contrast with the vivacious tem- 
per of his countrymen, commanded that respect which these 
qualities, even when not united with remarkable powers of 
intellect, usually inspire in them, as we see in the case of 
Is apoleon III. 

Here, then, in the middle of the sixteenth century, in 
France, were all the materials of civil war. It was inevita- 
ble that the Calvinists, harassed beyond endurance, should 
league themselves with the disaffected nobles who offered 
them the only chance of salvation fi'om their persecutors, 
and whose religious sympathies were on their side. Thus 
the Huguenots became a political party. The nation was 
divided into two bodies, with their passions inflamed. A 
tempest was at hand, and there was only a boy at the helm. 

The conspiracy of Amboise, which occurred in 1560, was 
an abortive scheme, of which a Protestant gentleman named 
La Renaudie was the chief author, for driving the Guises 
from power. Conde was privy to it; Calvin disapproved 
of it ; Coligny took no part in it. The next year the 
Estates assembled at Orleans, and a trap was laid by the 
Catholic leaders for the destruction "of all Protestants who 
should refuse to abjure their religion. Conde had been ar- 
rested and put under guard, when, just as the fatal blow was 
ready to faU, the young king died. Charles IX., his 



THE MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW. 11 

brother, was only ten years old, and it was no longer prac- 
ticable to shut out his mother from the office of guardian 
over him, and from a virtual regency. From this time she 
comes to the front, and becomes a power in the State. 
Mary Stuart returned to Scotland, and on another theatre 
entered upon that tragic career which ended on the scaffold 
at Fotheringay. The Queen Mother was now free from her 
dangerous rival. Through her whole career, tortuous and 
inconsistent as it often seemed, Catherine de Medici was 
actuated by a single motive — the purpose to maintain the 
authority of her sons and her own ascendancy over them. 
To check and cast down whichever party threatened to ac- 
quire a dangerous predominance and to supplant her, was 
her incessant aim. Caring little or nothing for religious doc- 
trines, she hated the restraints of religion, and hence could 
regard Calvinism only with aversion. But how indifferent 
she was to the controversy between the rival churches is 
indicated by her jocose remark, when the mistaken report 
reached her that the Protestants had gained the victory at 
Dreux : " Then we shall say our prayers in French." She 
believed in astrology, and that was about the limit of her 
faith. To rule her children, and to rule France through 
them, was the one end which she always kept in view. 

The civil wars began in 1562 with the massacre of Yassy, 
where the troopers of Guise provoked a conflict with an un- 
armed congregation of Protestant worshippers, many of 
whom they slaughtered. Ten years intervened between this 
event and the massacre of St. Bartholomew ; years of intes- 
tine conflict, when France bled at every pore, l^either 
party was strong enough to subjugate the other. The pa- 
tience of the Protestants had been worn out by forty years 
of sanguinary persecution. The battle on both sides was 
waged with bitter animosity. The country was ravaged 
from side to side. The Catholics found it impossible to 
crush their antagonists, who revived from every disaster, 
and extorted, in successive treaties, a measure of liberty for 



12 THE MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW. 

their worship. Among the events which it is necessary for 
our purpose to mention is the assassination of the Duke of 
Guise by a Huguenot nobleman in 1563, while the Duke 
was laying siege to Orleans, then in the hands of the Prot- 
estants. This act met with no countenance fi'om the Prot- 
estant leaders. It was condemned by Calvin. It was said 
that the assassin, when stretched on the rack, avowed that 
the deed was done with the connivance of Coligny. But he 
was subjected to no fair examination, and there was no rea- 
son to doubt the assertion of the Admiral that he had no 
agency in it. He admitted that for six months, since he had 
learned that Guise was plotting his own destruction and 
that of his brothers, he had made no exertions to save that 
nobleman's life. Innocent though Coligny was of all parti- 
cipation in this deed, it planted seeds of implacable hostility 
in the minds of Guise's family, the fruits of which eventu- 
ally appeared. Another event, which it specially concerns 
us to notice, was the insmTection of the Huguenots which 
they set on foot several years later, in anticipation of a pro- 
jected attack upon them, and which resulted in their extort- 
ing from Charles IX., in 1568, the Peace of Longjumeau. 
The king was exasperated at being obliged to treat with his 
subjects in arms. This humiliating event was skilfully used 
afterward to goad him on to a measure to which he was not 
spontaneously inclined. 

At this time the foundations of the Catholic League were 
laid. The extreme Catholics began to band themselves 
together, instigated by the spirit of the CathoHc reaction 
which, through its mouthpiece, the Pope, and its secular 
head, Philip II., breathed out fire and slaughter against aU 
heretics. Between this bigoted faction, which became more 
and more furious as time went on, and the Huguenots, were 
the Moderates — the Politiques, as they were called — Catho- 
lics who deplored the continuance of civil war, deprecated 
the undue ascendancy of Spain, and were in favor of an ac- 
commodation with the Protestants. The treachery of Cath- 



THE MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW. 13 

erine de Medici broke the treaty of Longjumean ; but ber 
plan to entrap and destroy the Huguenot leaders failed. 
Their defeat at Jarnac, where Conde perished, and at Mon- 
eontour, with the military triumph of her favorite son, the 
Duke of Anjou, did not bring to her content. The defeated 
forces of the Protestants, imder the masterly lead of Coligny, 
found a refuge within the walls of Rochelle, where the 
Queen of li^avarre established her court, and whence Co- 
ligny, with his cavalry, and with the young princes, Henry 
of JN'avarre and Henry of Conde at his side, was soon able 
to sally forth and take the offensive. The Queen Mother 
was now eager for peace. The atmosphere of intrigue and 
diplomacy was always more pleasing to her than the clash 
of arms. The king's treasury was exhausted. He did not 
relish the military successes of Anjou. The Huguenots 
sprang up from their defeats with indomitable courage. 
Moreover, Catherine, the king, the w^hole party of Moder- 
ates, saw that the continuance of the strife could only re- 
dound to the profit of Philip, who lent aid or withheld it, 
with sole reference to his own ambitious projects. If the 
war was to go on between the king and his Protestant sub- 
jects, the latter would get help from England and Germany, 
and the government, forced to fall back upon the support of 
Spain, would come into practical subservience to Philip. 
To this the Queen Mother was not at all inclined. At the 
Conference of Bayonne in 1565, both she and Charles IX. 
had disappointed Alva by refusing to enter into his plan for 
a common crusade against the heretical subjects of France 
and Spain. Thus, in 1570, the Peace of St. Germain was 
concluded. The Huguenots, who could not longer be ex- 
pected to trust the king's word, were put in possession of 
four fortified towns for the space of two years. They were 
to be given up to Henry of ISTavarre, Henry of Conde, and 
twenty Huguenot gentlemen. The Lorraine faction, the 
Guises and their followers, acquiesced in the treaty. 

Observe, now, the political situation. The policy of the 



14 THE MASSACEE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW. 

court was turned in the anti- Spanish direction. The power 
of Philip was becoming too formidable. The Duke of Alva 
had begun his bloody career in the Netherlands inl56T with 
the execution of Egmont and Horn, and numerous other judi- 
cial murders. Xow, his tyranny was at its height. Philip 
had planned a marriage between his half-brother, Don John 
of Austria, and Mary Stuart, which would give him, as he 
hoped, control over Scotland and England both. He was 
already supreme in Italy. His wish was to marry his sister 
to Charles IX., and to unite with him in an anti-Protestant 
coalition. Then all Europe would lie at his feet, and France 
be practically a Spanish province. On the 25th of Febru- 
ary, 1570, Pius Y., an untiring and unpitying instigator of 
persecution, issued his bull of excommunication against 
Elizabeth. A year after, the brilliant victory of Spain over 
the Turks at Lepanto stiU further raised the prestige of 
Philip, and left him more free to pursue his ambitious 
schemes in ^estern Europe. The Queen Mother loved 
power too wel^ for herself and her children, to fall into the 
snare which Philip was setting. She entered warmly into 
the project of a marriage between her second son, the Duke 
of Anjou, and Elizabeth, which was first suggested by the 
brother of Coligny. When Anjou, seduced by the Spanish 
court, and by the offer of 100,000 crowns fi-om the Pope's 
ISTuncio, drew back from a match with a heretic so much 
older than himself, Catherine was eager to substitute for 
him his younger brother Alen9on ; and indulged also the 
chimerical hope that Anjou might secure the hand of Mary 
Queen of Scots. This policy of the court could not be other- 
wise than satisfactory to the Huguenots. War with Spain, 
to be fought out in the IS'etherlands, in alliance with England 
and Germany, but with due care for French interests, ap- 
pealed at once to their patriotic feeling and their religious 
enthusiasm. The government and the Huguenot party were 
thus drawn toward each other. A marriage between Henry 
of Navarre and Margaret of Yalois, the daughter of Cath- 



THE MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW. 15 

erine, had been spoken of long before, prior to the death of 
JHenry II., when both I^avarre and Margaret were children. 
The idea was now revived from the side of the Moderates, 
\ by a son of Montmorenci. It was heartily favored by 
Catherine, warmly supported by the king, who was person- 
ally fond of Henry, and was struck with the expediency of 
a marriage which would thus unite the contending parties ; 
and it obtained at length the consent of the high-toned Queen 
of Navarre, with whom worldly distinction for her son was 
of far less account than honor and religious conviction. 
Coligny and the other Huguenot leaders lent their cordial 
approval to the plan. 

Coligny was now urgently invited to come to the court. 
The king and the Queen Mother were anxious to have the 
benefit of his counsel. Despite the opposition of his friends, 
including the Queen of I^avarre, who were unwilling to see 
him commit himself to the hands of those who had been, in 
the past, his perfidious enemies, Coligny determined to com- 
ply with the invitation. He confided in Charles, he said ; 
he would rather die at once, than live a hundred years, sub- 
ject to cowardly apprehensions. He earnestly desired to 
bring the civil conflict to an end. He was full of ardor for 
the enterprise against Philip, in the l^etherlands, into which 
he hoped to carry the king. It would give employment to 
the numerous mercenaries and marauders whom the cessa- 
tion of the war at home had left idle. It would stril<ce a 
blow, alike honorable and useful to France, and damaging 
to Spain. Coligny left Rochelle, escorted by fifty gentle- 
men, and arrived at Blois, where the court was, on the 12tli 
of September, 1571. He was welcomed by Catherine, and 
by the king, who greeted him with the title of "father," 
and declared that day to be the happiest of his life. 

Charles was twenty-one years of age. His natural talents 
were above the ordinary level. He was fond of music, and 
his poetical compositions were not without merit. But the 
education which he had received was the worst possible. 



16 THE MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW. 

His nature was unhealtlij, and utterly unregulated. Though 
not a debauchee, like his brother Anjou, his morbid impulses 
raged without control : his anger, when excited, bordered on 
frenzy. Yet there was in him a latent vein of generous 
feeling. He met in Coligny, almost for the first time in his 
life, a man whom he could revere. Coligny was fifty-four 
years of age. He had 'been a man of war fi'om his youth 
up ; but he had drawn the sword from a stern sense of 
duty ; and his lofty character could not fail to impress all 
who were. thrown in his company. He, in turn, seemed to 
be charmed with his young sovereign. The jealousy of 
Catherine was soon aroused. "He sees too much of the 
Admiral," she said, " and too little of me." As the veteran 
soldier painted the advantages that would result fi^om going 
to the rescue of William of Orange, and striking a blow at 
Spain in the Low Countries, the sympathy of Charles was 
awakened, and he expressed an eager desire to enter person- 
ally into the contest. 

Meantime, the project of the marriage of Henry and Mar- 
garet continued to be pushed. The Queen of I^avarre was 
persuaded herself to come to Blois, in March, 1572. While 
there, in a letter to her son, she described the indecency of 
the court, where even the women had cast off the show of 
modesty, and did not blush to play the part of seducers. 
The marriage of Henry and Margaret, the plan of a matri- 
monial connection with Elizabeth, the scheme of an offensive 
alliance with England, and of a war with Spain, to be waged 
in Flanders, were all parts of a line of policy which the Hu- 
guenots urged, and which Catherine for a while favored. 
But she became more and more alarmed at the influence ac- 
quired by Coligny. Elizabeth was cautious, and the negoti- 
ations looking to a change of the defensive into an offensive 
alliance, lagged. A war with Spain, Catherine felt, would 
establish Coligny's ascendancy over the mind of Charles. 
Such a war she more and more dreaded on its own account ; 
and when the force secretly sent by Charles, under Genlis, 



THE MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW. IT 

to the support of Orange, was defeated and cut up by Alva's 
son, the Queen Mother declared herself vehemently against 
the measure on which Coligny rested all his hopes for France, 
and towards which the king, in his better moods, was 
strongly inclined. In the council, the party opposed to the 
war was led by Anjou. He, with Catherine, Eetz, Tavan- 
nes, and others to support him, was able to keep back the 
king from an absolute decision ; and thus, through the 
spring and early summer of 1572, the question was warmly, 
and sometimes angrily, debated. The death of the Queen 
of ISTavarre at Paris, on the 9th of June, was one cause for 
the postponement of the wedding of her son to the 18th of 
August. The refusal of the Pope to grant a dispensation 
was another hinderance. The king was resolved to effect 
the marriage, with or without the Pope's consent. A forged 
letter, purporting to come from Rome, announcing the con- 
sent of Gregory XIII., the new Pope, to the nuptials, was 
exhibited by Charles to the Cardinal of Bourbon, who had 
refused to solemnize the marriage without the papal authori- 
zation. 

In subsequent years Henry lY., the Conqueror of Iviy 
and the Restorer of Peace to France, looked back on the 8th 
of July, 1572, as one of the brightest days in all his tempestu- 
ous career. On that day he made his entry into Paris, riding 
between the king's two brothers, and accompanied by Conde, 
the Cardinal of Bourbon, the Admiral Coligny, and eight 
hundred mounted gentlemen. The procession, however, was 
greeted with little enthusiasm by the crowd that tilled the 
streets. Paris was the hot-bed of Catholic fanaticism. In 
all the treaties which had given liberty to the reformed 
worship, the capital had been excepted. Here the enmity 
of the populace to the Huguenots was rancorous in the ex- 
treme. All the pulpits in those days rang with fierce invec- 
tives against the heretics. Guise, with his mother, the 
Duchess of Nemours, and with a great military following, 
came to Paris also. The Huguenots had no protection but 



18 THE MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW. 

their own vigilance, their swords, and, above all, the good 
faith of the king, against the host of enemies by whom they 
were surronnded. 

On the 18th of August the long-expected marriage took 
place. The splendid procession, composed of the royal 
family and the nobility of France, moved along a covered 
platform from the Bishop's palace to the pavilion erected in 
front of ^otre Dame, where the ceremony took place. The 
bride, whose beauty and grace of person unhappily were not 
associated with moral qualities equally winning — for she was 
untruthful and vain, if not something worse — describes her 
own costume — her crown, her vest of ermine spotted with 
black {couet cVherinine mouchetee\ all brilliant with pearls, 
and the great blue mantle, whose train of four ells in length 
was carried by three princesses.* Charles, Xavarre and 
Conde, in token of their mutual affection, were dressed 
alike, in garments of light yellow satin, embroidered with 
silver, and glittering with pearls and precious stones. Mi- 
cheli, one of the Venetian ambassadors — accurate reporters 
— states that the cost of the king's bonnet, charger, and gar- 
ments, was half a million cro^^ms ; while Anjou wore in his 
hat thirty-two well-known pearls, purchased at a cost of 
23,000 gold crowns. All this, when the royal treasury was 
exhausted ! ^N'avarre led his bride from the pavilion into 
the church ; and then, during the celebration of mass, with 
the Huguenot chiefs withdrew to the adjacent cloister. De 
Thou, the French historian, who was then a youth of nine- 
teen, after the mass was over, climbed over the barriers 
errected to keep off the people, went into the choir, and heard 
Coligny, pointing to the flags taken at Jarnac and Moncon- 
tour, say to Damville that " soon these would be replaced by 
others more agreeable to see ; " alluding to the war in Flan- 
ders, on which his thoughts were bent. The next few days 
were given up to festivities — " balls, banquets, masques and 

* Memoiresde Marguerite de Valois, in Petitot's Collection, torn, xxxvii., 
p. 48. , 



THE MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW. 19 

tourneys," into wliicli IN^avarre entered with zest, but which 
were equally offensive and tedious to the grave Coligny, who 
longed to be away, and who vainly tried to draw the king's 
attention to the business which lay nearest his heart. Charles 
put him off. He must have a few days for pleasure ; then 
the admiral should be gratified. 

Five days after the wedding, on Friday, the 22d of Au- 
gust, at a little past ten in the morning, as Coligny was 
walking between two friends from the Louvre to his own 
lodgings, an arquebus was discharged at him from a latticed 
window of a house standing near the cloister of St. Germain 
I'Auxerrois. At the moment he was in the act of reading a 
petition. He was hit by a bullet on the first finger of the 
right hand ; another bullet entered his left arm. With his 
wounded hand he pointed out the window whence the shot 
had come, and directed an attendant to inform the king. 
He was then conducted to his lodgings. The king, vexed 
and enraged, threatened vengeance upon the guilty parties. 
His surgeon, Ambrose Pare, was sent, who amputated the 
finger, and extracted the ball from the arm. Navarre, at- 
tended by hundreds of Huguenot gentlemen, soon visited 
the admiral. Conde and other Huguenot leaders waited 
on the king, and demanded leave to retire from the court, 
where their lives were not safe. Charles begged them to re- 
main, and swore vengeance upon the perpetrators of the 
deed. 

The authors of the attempt to assassinate Coligny were 
Catherine de Medici, and her son, the Duke of Anjou, in 
conjunction with the Duke of Guise and his mother. The 
house belonged to a dependant of Guise ; the weapon, which 
was found in it, to one of Anjou's guards. The instrument 
who was employed to do the work was Maurevel, who, a few 
years before, had been hired to kill Coligny, at a time when 
a price was set on his head, but had murdered one of his 
lieutenants, Moiiy, in his stead. 

In the year following the massacre of St. Bartholomew, 



20 THE MASSACEE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW. 

Anjou — afterward Henrj III. — ^was elected king of Po- 
land. In the narrative which he is said to have given ver- 
bally to Miron, his physician, we are furnished with an ac- 
count of the motives and causes of the transaction in which 
he bore so guilty a part. The reporter, Miron, states that 
when Henry III. was on his way to Poland, in the cities of 
the Low Countries, wherever a crowd was assembled, he was 
saluted with bitter execrations in German, French, and Latin, 
for his agency in the massacre ; and that in apartments 
where he was entertained and lodged, he found paintings 
depicting scenes in that fearful tragedy, which had been ar- 
ranged beforehand to meet his eye. Hence, two days after 
his arrival in Cracow, he was kept awake in the night by the 
recollection of the terrible occurrences which had thus been 
brought to his mind. Restless and agitated, about three 
hours after midnight, he summoned Miron from an adjacent 
room to his bedside, and related to him there the story of 
the origin of the massacre. According to this statement of 
Henry IH., Charles, in the period just before the J^avarre 
marriage, was in frequent conference "with Coligny; and 
after those long conferences, the king treated Anjou and his 
mother in a very frigid and even rough manner. On one 
occasion, as Anjou was entering the king's apartment, after 
one of these interviews, Charles looked at him askance in a 
fierce way, and laid his hand upon the hilt of his dagger, so 
that he was glad to escape precipitately from the king's 
presence. Convinced that Coligny was undermining the king's 
regard for them, the Queen Mother and Anjou resolved to 
destroy him ; and for this end called in the aid of the 
Duchess of Nemours — the widow of G-uise, and an Italian 
by birth — whose vindictive hatred of the Huguenot leader 
made her a willing coadjutor. Maurevel, who had abundant 
cause to fear the Chatillons, was pitched" upon to do the deed. 
When the attempt had failed, the king after dimier — he 
dined at eleven — went to visit the wounded admiral. Cath- 
erine and Anjou took care to go with him. While they were 



THE MASSACRE OF ST. BAERHOLOMEW. 21 

in the Admiral's chamber, he signified his wish to speak with 
the king privately. Anjou and his mother retired to another 
part of the room. Alarmed at the way in which this pri- 
vate conference was prolonged, and at the menacing de- 
meanor of the throng of Huguenot gentlemen, who treated 
them with less than usual respect, Catherine stepped to the 
bedside, and, to the obvious disgust of the king, broke off the 
conversation — saying that Coligny must not be wearied, that 
there was danger of fever, and that a future time must be 
chosen for finishing their talk. Whatever may be false in 
this narrative of Renry III., or may be omitted fi'om it, 
the main cu^cumstances of the interview are correctly given. 
Coligny thought that the bullets might have been poisoned, 
and he wished to give his dying counsel to the sovereign. On 
the way back to the Louvre, Anjou proceeds to say, Catherine 
by her importunity wn*ung from the king the avowal that the 
admiral had warned him of the fatal consequences that 
would follow fi'om allowing the management of public affairs 
to remain in her hands, and had advised him to hold her in 
suspicion, and to guard against her. This the king uttered 
with extreme passion, implying that he approved of Coligny's 
advice. 

There was good ground for the consternation of the Queen 
Mother and of Anjou. A crisis had come for which they 
were not prepared. The wrath of the Huguenots was ready 
to burst forth in an armed attack upon the opposite faction. 
They were restrained only by the king ; and even he was 
resolved to punish to the full the assailants of Coligny. If 
the Guises fell, the ascendancy of the Huguenot chief, who 
would recover from his wounds, was assured. But the pun- 
ishment which the king threatened might fall on Anjou, 
also, if not on Catherine herself. Nothing was left to her 
but to make another desperate effort, with the aid of coun- 
sellors as unprincipled as herself, to win back the king, re- 
sume the control over him which slie had exercised from his 
childhood, and to enlist him in the work of destroying the 



22 THE MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW. 

Admiral and of breaking down the -Huguenots' power of re- 
sistance. After noon on Saturday, slie collected about her, in 
anxious conclave in the Tuileries, besides Anjou, the Count 
de Ketz, the Chancellor Birogne, the Marshal de Tavannes, 
and the Duke de E'evers ; three of whom were Itahans like 
herself, with no scruples about assassinating an enemy, and 
with whom deceit and mystery lent an added fascination to 
crime. With these men, the Queen Mother repaired to the 
Louvre, to the cabinet of her son. There she made, with all 
her energy and skill, her last and successful onset upon 
him. She avowed her own agency, and that of Anjou, in 
the attempt upon Coligny. But first she declared to him 
that the Huguenots were everywhere arming to make them- 
selves masters of the government ; that the Admiral was to 
furnish 6,000 cavalry and 10,000 Swiss ; that the Catholics 
in turn had lost all patience, and would instantly combine in 
a league to supplant him and seize on power ; that there 
was no deliverance but in the death of Coligny, without 
whom the Huguenots would be left destitute of a leader. 
She reminded Charles of the insurrection when, at Meaux, 
they had nearly got possession of his person — a recollection 
that always excited his anger. When she saw that he did 
not yield ; that he could not bring himself to give up Coli- 
gny and his friends — La Rochefoucauld, Teligni, and others — 
she begged — almost breathless, in her feigned despair — that 
she and Anjou might have leave to withdraw from the ap- 
proaching ruin — to retire from the court. To retire, as he 
well understood, meant to join themselves to the Catholic 
faction, soon to be in arms against him. At last she taunted 
him with fear of the Huguenots. Then he gave up ; and 
in the fury of his vexation, wild with excitement, bade them 
kill not the Admiral alone, but all the Huguenots in France, 
that none might be left to reproach him. Such is the state- 
n: 3nt of Henry, who thus attributes the general massacre to 
the suggestion of the king. But Tavannes — or the son in 
the memoirs of his father — relates that the recommendation 



THE MASSACKE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW. 23 

of the council was to slay all the Huguenot leaders : he as- 
serts that Navarre and Conde were spared by his own inter- 
cession. Catherine must have foreseen that the murder of 
Coligny, which could only be effected by open violence, 
would lead to a general slaughter, or to a bloody encounter 
between the forces of the two parties, resulting in a great 
loss of life. If she did not first recommend the general 
massacre, she consented to the plot, and joined in the execu- 
tion of it. 

The plan being formed, the requisite orders were promptly 
given. Guise took it in hand to destroy the admiral. 
Chanon, the Provost of Merchants, and with him Marcel 
his predecessor, on whose influence and cruel disposition 
more reliance was placed, were summoned, and commis- 
sioned to shut the gates of the city so that none could go 
out or come in, to arm the people, and have them in readi- 
ness in their proper wards. The organized soldiery were 
conveniently disposed under their commanders. A con- 
spiracy and threatened rising of the Huguenots were the pre- 
text for these arrangements ; but the soldiers and the leaders 
of the mob needed no such inducement to reconcile them to 
the task of putting to death the heretics. As the dawn ap- 
proached, Guise, with the bastard Angouleme, a son of 
Henry 11. , moved with a strong force silently through the 
streets to the lodgings of the admiral, where the king's 
guards, who had been stationed there for his protection, were 
ready to side with the assassins. Coligny heard the tumult ; 
divined its nature ; calmly commended his soul to Christ ; 
told his friends that he was ready to die ; bade them es- 
cape, and was pierced with the swords of the hired murder- 
ers who flung his body from the window upon the pave- 
ment, that Guise might be satisfied that the work was com- 
pletely done, and trample on the lifeless hero whom he had 
hated. Guise had ordered that every true Catholic should 
tie a white band upon his arm, and fasten a white cross to 
his hat. A distinguished painter, Millais, has depicted, in 



24: THE MASSACEE OF ST. BAKTHOLOMEW. 

'' The Huguenot Lover," a scene that might naturally have 
occurred. A maiden, in whose countenance tenderness is 
mingled with terror, is gazing up into the face of her lover, 
about whose arm she is trying to bind a white scarf — which 
he gently but firmly resists. The houses of the Huguenots 
were registered ; there was no difficulty in finding the vic- 
tims. 

At early dawn the great bell of Saint Germain I'Auxer- 
rois tolled out the signal, and the slaughter began. Even 
the hard-hearted Marshal Tavannes, who superintended the 
soldiery, says: "Blood and death fill the streets with such 
horror that even their majesties, who were the authors of it, 
within the Louvre cannot avoid fear ; all the Huguenots 
are indiscriminately slain, making no defence ; many women 
and children are slain by the furious populace ; two thou- 
sand are massacred." Catherine de Medici and her two sons 
had come to the fi'ont of the Louvre " to see the execution 
commence." This same Tavannes, with savage ferocity, 
cried to his men : " Kill, kill ! bleeding is as good in August 
as in May ! " The Protestant noblemen who were near 
Coligny, placed there for his defence, were murdered. La 
Rochefoucauld, who had spent the previous evening with 
the king until 11 o'clock, and whom Charles had tried to 
detain for the night in order to save him, was stabbed to 
the heart. Teligni, Coligny's son-in-law, a man beloved by 
all, was butchered by a valet of Anjou. Brion, the white- 
haired preceptor of the Marquis of Conti, the young brother 
of Conde, was massacred in the arms of the child, who 
begged in vain that the life of his teacher might be spared. 
Among the killed was Peter Ramus, a renowned scholar 
and philosopher, who was detested as a Protestant and as an 
opponent of Aristotle, and fell a victim to the jealousy of his 
rival, Charpentier. Private revenge and avarice seized on 
the occasion to strike down those who were hated, or whose 
property was coveted; 

Among the most revolting f eatm*es of the massacre were 



THE MASSACKE OF ST. BAETHOLOMEW. 25 

tlie part taken by women and children in the work of death, 
and the brutality with which the corpses of the dead were 
mutilated, and dragged through the streets. The tumult, 
as a writer has said, was like that " of hell. The clanging 
bells, the crashing doors, the musket shots, the rush of armed 
men, the shrieks of their victims, and high over all the yells 
of the mob, fiercer and more pitiless than hungry wolves, 
made such an uproar that the stoutest hearts shrank appalled, 
and the sanest appear to have lost their reason." ^ On the 
evening before, Margaret of Yalois had been bidden by her 
mother to retire to her own room. Her sister Claude 
caught her by the arm and begged her not to go, an inter- 
ference which Catherine sharply rebuked. " I departed," 
says Margaret, " alarmed and amazed, not knowing what I 
had to dread." She found the King of JN'avarre's apart- 
ments filled with Huguenot gentlemen, talking of the de- 
mand which they would make of the king, the next day, for 
the punishment of the Duke of Guise. At dawn, her hus- 
band went out with them to the tennis-court, to w^ait for 
Charles to rise. She fell asleep, but an hour later was 
awakened by a man calling out, ''JVcwarre,^^ " NavarreP 
The nurse openedt he door, when a wounded gentleman, 
pursued by four soldiers, rushed in and flung himself upon 
her bed. She sprang up, follow^ed by the man, who still 
clung to her — as it soon appeared, for protection. The cap- 
tain of the guards was fortunately at hand. He drove out 
the soldiers, and the life of the wounded man was saved. 
The friends, guards and servants of JN'avarre and Conde 
vvrere slain. Two hundred bodies lay under the windows of 
the palace. They were inspected, at a later hour, by the 
ladies of the court, who commented on them with a shame- 
less indecency, that would be incredible were it not attested 
by good evidence. The princes themselves had been sum- 
moned to the king's chamber. Charles, excited to fury, de- 



* Henry White : " Massacre of St. Bartholomew," p. 413. 



26 THE MASSAOKE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW. 

manded of them to abjure their heresy. " The mass, or 
death ! " he cried. Navarre, politic though brave, reminded 
him of his promises, and required time to consider. Conde 
firmly refused. Three days were given them in which to 
make their decision. They finally conformed, to save their 
lives ; and these converts made in this way were graciously 
accepted by the Pope. In the course of the massacre, there 
were many w^ho narrowly escaped death. A little boy, the 
son of La Force, saw his brother and father killed, and lay, 
pretending to be dead, all the day under their bodies, nntil 
he heard from a bystander an expression of pity for the 
slain, to whom he revealed himself, and was saved. Sully, 
afterward prime minister of Henry lY., then in his twelfth 
year, escaped almost by miracle. 

The slaughter once begun, could not easily be stopped. 
Several days passed before the scenes of robbery and mur- 
der came to an end. Capilupi, who wrote his account im- 
mediately after the massacre, under the direction of the 
Cardinal of Lorraine, referring to Sunday, the principal day, 
says: "It was a holiday, and therefore the people could 
more conveniently find leisure to kill and plunder." Orders 
were sent to the other principal towns of France, where the 
massacre of the Huguenots was carried forward with like cir- 
cumstances of cruelty. IS^ot less than twenty thousand per- 
sons of both sexes, and of every age, were killed in obedi- 
ence to the command of the court. 

On the first evening after the massacre, the king had sent 
out messages, ascribing the whole to a conflict of the hostile 
houses of Guise and Chatillon. Soon it was found neces- 
sary, as well as expedient, to assume the responsibility for 
the dreadful transaction, and to declare that the massacre 
was made necessary by a dangerous conspiracy of the Hugue- 
nots against the king and government. To carry out this 
false pretension, several of the Huguenot leaders, who had 
escaped with their lives, were put through the forms of a 
judicial process, convicted, and executed. Henry of ]S"a- 



THE MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW. 27 

varre was compelled to be one of tlie spectators of the death 
of these innocent men. 

In all Protestant countries, the report of the great mas- 
sacre called out a feeling of mimixed reprobation and hor- 
ror. Burghley told La Mothe-Fenelon, the French ambassa- 
dor, that " the Paris massacre was the most horrible crime 
which had been committed since the crucifixion of Christ." 
John Knox said to Du Croc, the French Minister in Scot- 
land ; '' Go, tell your king, that God's vengeance shall never 
depart from him nor from his house ; that his name shall 
remain an execration to posterity ; and that none proceed- 
ing from his loins shall enjoy the kingdom in peace unless 
he repent." The Emperor Maximilian II., Catholic though 
he was, expressed the strong condemnation which was felt 
by all whose hearts were not hardened by sectarian animos- 
ity. On the contrary, in Rome and in Madrid, the seats of 
the Catholic Reaction, there was joy and thanksgiving. 
Philip 11. , who, it is said, laughed aloud for the first time in 
his life, was profuse in his congratulations. The event was 
celebrated at Rome by the ringing of bells, bonfires, and 
solemn processions. An inscription over the church of St. 
Louis, where a Te Deton was chanted, described Charles 
IX. as an avenging angel, despatched from heaven to sweep 
his Ivingdom of heretics. A medal was struck by Gregory 
XIII. to commemorate the massacre — bearing on one face 
the inscription " Hugonotormn Sir ages " — Slaughter of the 
Huguenots — together with the figure of an avenging angel 
engaged in destroying them. Three frescoes were painted 
by Yasari in the Vatican, according to the Pope's order, de- 
scribing the attack upon the Admiral, the king in his coun- 
cil plotting the massacre, and the massacre itself. This 
painting bears the inscription: Pontifex Colignii necem 
jprobat — the Pope approves the killing of Coligny. It is 
pretended by some that the authorities at Rome were de- 
ceived by the story of a Huguenot conspiracy against the 



28 THE IVIASSACRE OF ST. BAETHOLOMEW. 

king's life, which the massacre prevented from being car- 
ried out. But Charles did not bring forward this story 
until the 26th of August. . On the 2tl:th, he wrote to his 
ambassador at Rome — Ferraz — that the slaughter resulted 
from a conflict of the two families of Guise and Chatillon. 
Salviati himself, the E'uncio of the Pope, said that no per- 
son of sense believed the tale of a conspiracy. The isun- 
cio's despatches put the Com^t of Rome in immediate pos- 
session of the real facts. The Cardinal of Lorraine claimed 
at Rome that the massacre was the product of long deceit 
and premeditation. The circumstance that Muretus, in his 
inhuman panegp'ic of the murderers, delivered in Rome f our 
months after the event, charges a conspiracy upon the slain 
Huguenots, does not prove that anybody believed it. It is 
probable that few, if any, were deceived by the fiction of a 
Huguenot plot — an afterthought of Catherine and the king. 
The exultation at Rome and Madrid was over the destruc- 
tion of heretics, and the downfall of the anti-Spanish party 
in France. The rejoicings of the Yatican were kept up, 
after the massacre at Paris, as the reports of the continua- 
tion of the tragedy reached Rome from other parts of the 
kingdom. It was simply a fanatical joy over the murder of 
apostates from the Roman Catholic religion. 

The Massacre of St. Bartholomew, like the whole course 
of events in the sixteenth century, was due to a mingling of 
political and religious motives. It was not political ambi- 
tion and rivalry alone, nor was it religious fanaticism alone, 
that gave rise to this terrible event, but both united. But 
personal motives were, also, closely interwoven with these 
agencies. The principal, most responsible author of the 
crime, was Catherine de Medici. It sprang out of her jeal- 
ously of Coligny's influence, and her fear of being sup- 
planted. Anjou, her companion in guilt, was moved by the 
same inducements. Their confederates, Henry of Guise and 
his mother, were instigated by revenge, mingled with the 



THE MASSACRE OF ST. BAETHOLOMEW. 29 

ambition and resentment of political aspirants who saw 
themselves on the verge of a downfall. But the instrument 
by which these individuals accomplished their design was 
the fanaticism which the reactionary Catholic movement had 
kindled in the populace and soldiery of Paris. It was reli- 
ligious malignity that sharpened their daggers, and found 
vent in the fiendish yells that resounded through Paris on 
that fearful night. The slaying of heretics had never been 
rebuked by their religious teachers, but only encouraged and 
applauded. The thanksgivings at Kome were the proper 
sequel of the exhortations which had been sent forth from 
the same seat of authority. 

Was the Massacre of St. Bartholomew contrived long be- 
forehand? So it was once thought. Davila, and other 
Italian writers, declared this to be the fact. To them, the 
event would have been shorn of a great part of its interest, 
if it did not occur as the result of a long and intricate plot. 
Even the authors of the crime, to account for the sudden re- 
versal of their attitude toward Spain and for their previous 
acts of hostility against Philip, were willing to countenance 
this interpretation of their conduct. The Huguenots, on 
whom the blow fell like a thunderbolt, and who had a right 
to consider those murderers of St. Bartholomew capable of 
infinite falsehood, naturally took this view. The treaty of 
St. Germain, the marriage of Navarre, the collecting of the 
Huguenot leaders in Paris, the offensive demonstrations in 
the Low Countries, were elements in a diabolical scheme for 
their destruction. Yet this theory was undoubtedly errone- 
ous. Philip and Alva had been right in expecting a war 
with France. Not only the Navarre marriage, but the ne- 
gotiations with Elizabeth respecting marriages and an alli- 
ance, were undertaken with a sincere intent on the part of 
Charles IX. and Catherine. The theory of a long premedi- 
tation of the great crime, and that all these transactions, 
stretching over two years, were steps in a deep-laid plot, is 
confuted by an irresistible amount of circumstantial evidence, 



30 THE MASSACEE OF ST. BAETHOLOMEW. 

and bj the authentic testimony of Tavannes and Anjou, 
chief actors in the tragedy. The spell which Coligny had 
cast npon the mind of the king, whom he had impressed so 
far as to persuade him to enter into war, was what deter- 
mined Catherine de Medici to bring about the death of the 
Admiral by the agency of the Guises. She probably antici- 
pated that vengeance would be taken by the Huguenots upon 
these leaders of the Catholic faction ; but for that she did 
not care. The fall of the leaders on both sides would 
strengthen her power. When the Admiral was wounded, 
instead of being killed ; when she saw that he survived with 
undiminished and even increased influence, and that her and 
Anjou's complicity in the attempt could not be concealed, she 
struck out another programme. 

All this appears to be established by conclusive proofs. 
And yet, on the other hand, there are facts going to show 
that the thought of cutting off the Huguenot leaders had 
long haunted Catherine's mind ; and that she even shaped 
the course of events in such a way as to enable her, if she 
found it expedient, to convert this thought into a definite 
purpose, and to carry it out in the deed. 

The destruction of the Huguenot chiefs, as a means of 
paralyzing and crushing their party, had been recommended 
to her by Philip as early as 1560. At Bayonne, Alva had 
given her the same counsel. He had himself acted on his 
theory in the treacherous seizure and execution of Egmont 
and Horn. These things must have made the idea familiar 
to Catherine. In 1570, the Yenetian Ambassador says that 
it was generally thought that it would be enough to strike 
off five or six heads. It is, at least, a curious coincidence, 
that Catherine declared, after the massacre, that she took 
on herself the guilt of the murder of only six. It w^as 
Catherine who insisted that the wedding of I^avarre should 
be at Paris. Other points she was willing to waive ; but 
not this. What was her motive, unless it was to collect the 
Huguenots in a place where they w^ould be in her power ? 



THE MASSACKE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW. 81 

In January, 15Y2, the Papal Legate wrote to Kome, that he 
had failed in all his efforts ; yet there were some things, 
which he conld only verbally report, which were not wholly 
"unfavorable. Cardinal Salviati, a Florentine, a relative of 
the Medici, and intimate with Catherine, had informed Pins 
Y. that there was a secret plan favorable to the Catholics. 
After the massacre, Catherine reminded the Nuncio of the 
word that she had sent to the Pope, that he would see how 
she and her son would avenge themselves on the Huguenots. 
Facts of this nature appear to contradict the conclusion to 
which the general current of evidence leads us. They jus- 
tify the inference, not that Catherine had resolved upon the 
deed, but that she was glad, even while pursuing an oppo- 
site policy, to provide herself with the means of doing it. 
Other princes of that day — Queen Elizabeth, for example- 
were fond of having two strings to their bow. While pur- 
suing one policy, Elizabeth was fond of holding in her hand 
the threads of another and opposite line of conduct. In 
this double intent of Catherine de Medici, we are presented, 
as Panke has said, with a psychological problem, such as 
one occasionally meets with in historical study. It is like 
the question of Mary Stuart's participation in the murder of 
Darnley. These are problems which the philosopher and 
the poet are most competent to solve. They require, as the 
same great historian has said, an insight into the deep and 
complicated springs of action in the soul — the profound 
"abysses where the storms of passion rage," and where 
strange and appalling crimes have their birth. It would 
seem as if, in the brain of this devilish woman, whose depth 
of deceit she herself could hardly fathom, there were weav- 
ing at once two plots. While she was moving on one path, 
she was secretly making ready, should the occasion arise, 
to spring to another. If all should go well in amity with 
the Huguenots, she would be content ; but if not, they would 
be helpless in her hands. Not only was she double-tongued, 
but she was double-minded ; there was duplicity in her in- 



32 THE MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW. 

most tlionglits and designs. But this occult thought, which 
finally developed into purpose and act, was confined to her- 
self. The king had no share in it. Like Pilate, he gave 
consent. His crime was that he yielded to the pressure 
brought upon him by his inliuman mother and her confeder- 
ates, and authorized a crime a parallel to which can be found 
only by going back of all Christian ages, to the bloody pro- 
scriptions of heathen Eome."^^' 

It is interesting to glance at the fate of the authors of the 
massacre. Less than two years after, on the 30tli of May, 
1574, Charles IX. died. On his death-bed, his brief inter- 
vals of sleep were disturbed by horrible visions. He suffered 
from violent hemorrhages, and sometimes awoke bathed in 
blood, which recalled to his mind the torrents of blood shed 
by his orders on that dreadful night. In his dreams he be- 
held the bodies of the dead floating upon the Seine, and 
heard their agonizing cries. Anjou — Henry III. — more 
guilty than he, mounted the throne. But Guise, his rival, 
the idol of the League, stole away the hearts of the people. 
He enjoyed the reality of power, and there was danger that 
he might get the crown too. On the 23d of September, 
1588, in the chateau of Blois, where the Estates were assem- 
bled, Henry of Guise was in^^ted to the cabinet of the king. 
As he crossed the threshold, by the order of Henry HI. he 
was stabbed and thrown down by men belonging to the 
king's body-guard, and after a short but desperate resistance, 
was killed at the foot of the king's bed. The Cardinal of 

* On the question wlietlier the massacre had been planned long before, 
there are three opinions. That it was so planned is maintained, among 
others, in an elaborate argument by Sir James Mackintosh, in his History 
of England^ vol. iii. That there was no such premeditation is, at pres- 
ent, the more general opinion. It is clearly set forth by Professor Baird, 
in his recent History of the Rise of the Huguenots. The middle view 
which attributes to the Queen Mother a dual plot, is that maintained by 
Eanke, and appears to me to match best the evidence, collectively taken. 
Extracts from Salviati's despatches, as copied by Chateaubriand, are in 
the Appendix of Mackintosh, vol. iii. 



THE MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW. 33 

Lorraine, tlie brother of Guise, was seized and executed. 
The Cardinal of Bourbon was placed under arrest. Cathe- 
rine de Medici was at this time laboring under a mortal ill- 
ness. Her son had renounced her counsels, power had 
slipped from her hands, and she had become an object of 
general aversion and contempt. Her apartment was directly 
under that in which Guise had been struck down, and the 
sounds of the deadly struggle reached her ears. When she 
learned what had occurred, she saw that the murder boded 
no good to the king. She rallied her strength and visited 
the Cardinal of Bourbon. He charged everything upon 
her ; she could not rest, he told her, until she had brought 
all to the slaughter. In this scene, pale and haggard — like 
the wife of Macbeth, " troubled with thick-coming fancies 
that keep her from her rest " — she appears on the stage for 
the last time. In full view of the danger that impended 
over her son, and of the ruin of her house, she expired. 
Soon Henry III. was obliged to fly from the anathemas of 
the Sorbonne, and the wrath of the League, to the camp of 
Henry TV. There, on the 1st of August, 1589, a fanatical 
Dominican priest, Clement, by name, came to him, pretend- 
ing to have secrets of importance to communicate. The 
king bent his ear to listen, but was immediately heard to 
cry out : " Ah ! the villainous monk — he has killed me ! " 
Clement had drawn a knife from his sleeve and buried it in 
his body. Henry lingered for eighteen hours ; and then the 
last of the four principal conspirators who planned the Mas- 
sacre of St. Bartholomew, and the last king of the line of 

Yalois, died. 
2* 



34: THE OLD EOMAN SPIRIT AND EELIGION 



THE OLD ROMAN SPIRIT AND RELIGION IN 
LATIN CHRISTIANITY.* 

Ai^ciENT Christianity passed tliroiigli three consecutive 
stages : it was first Jewish, then Greek, then Latin. Greek 
Christianity and Latin Christianity each became permanent, 
but diverged from one another, and gi^ew at length to be 
distinct. Each of these types of Christianity planted itself 
among new nations, and underwent a development of its 
own — in the case of Latin Christianity, a development full 
of vitality, and entering as a prime element into the growth 
of European civilization. 

Christianity was at first of necessity Jewish. Its founders 
were of that nation. It had an organic connection with the 
religion and life of the Hebrew people. Jerusalem was the 
metropolis of the church in the apostolic age. It still re- 
mained '' the Holy City." Thither the apostles resorted as 
to a common hearth-stone, and there one or more of them 
almost constantly resided. To the church at Jerusalem per- 
plexed and disputed questions, like that of the requirements 
to be made of gentile converts, were naturally brought. 
There was the mother- church, to which the Christians scat- 
tered abroad turned with somewhat of the same feeling with 
which the Jewish diaspora had looked to their Judean 
brethren. To that church the apostle to the gentiles, tena- 
cious as he was of his independence, chose to carry reports 
of his missionary labors, and to manifest his loyal regard by 
bringing to it from afar contributions of money for the re- 
lief of the poor. 

* An Article in The Princeton Review for January, 1880. 



IN LATTN CHKISTIANITT. 35 

But Christianity rapidly passed beyond the Jewish period. 
An Asiatic religion in its origin, it was destined to find the 
most hospital welcome and most secure abode in Europe. 
The gentile converts rapidly preponderated in number over 
the Jewish. The obsolescent character of the Old Testa- 
ment rites was more and more clearly discerned. Circum- 
cision and sacrifice were seen to be things of the past, and 
national privileges and distinctions melted away in propor- 
tion as the spiritual and universal character of the Gospel — a 
religion not for the Jew only, but for man — was distinctly 
perceived. The crushing of the Jewish nationality by the 
overwhelming power of the Romans precipitated the com- 
pletion of the great change. The soldier of Titus who, on 
the 15 til of July in the year 70, flung a blazing brand into 
the Temple, was an unconscious instrument of Providence 
for breaking up the Judaic centre of Christianity. That act 
was a signal of a new order of things, marking the dissolu- 
tion of the bond w^hich held the church in a certain depen- 
dent relation to Jewish Christianity. 

For the century that followed tl:^e capture of Jerusalem 
by Titus and the death of Paul and of Peter, Christianity 
was everywhere predominantly Greek. Tlie canonical gos- 
pels, with the possible exception of the first, were wi'itten in 
that language, and the Hebrew original of Matthew was 
early superseded by a Greek edition of that gospel. The 
apostles wrote their epi-stles in that cosmopolitan language, 
the common vehicle of communication wherever they went. 
Religious services, even among the Christians at Rome, were 
in the Greek tongue. Theological discussion was carried 
forward almost exclusively by Greeks. It was long before 
any important writer of Latin extraction, or employing the 
Latin in his works, appeared' 'Not only Clement of Alex- 
andria, and Origen after him, but Justin Martyr, the most 
conspicuous of the Apologists of the second century, and 
L'enseus, who was born in Asia Minor, but was a bishop at 
Lyons and the most eminent literary adversary of Gnostic 



36 THE OLD ROMAN SPIRIT AND RELIGION 

heresies in that period, were Greek writers. The first theo- 
logical author of note who wrote in Latin was the ^N^orth 
African father, TertuUian, early in the third centmy. His 
style, though its peculiar roughness springs in part fi'om his 
impetuous fervor and the hrusquerie of his temper, shows 
how ill-adapted the Latin was to serve as a medium for 
Christian thought and for theological debate, compared with 
that flexible and subtle language in which the truths of the 
Gospel had before been incorporated. Theological acti\dty 
in the early centuries continued predominantly on the Greek 
side. The discussions of the Trinity and of the person of 
Christ, which gave rise to the great councils of J^icea, Con- 
stantinople, and Chalcedon, were carried forward in the East. 
When Alexandria, Antioch, Ephesus, and the other cities of 
the East resounded with the din of theological strife, the 
West was, for the most part, little more than a passive spec- 
tator of the conflict. All the while, however, Latin Chris- 
tianity was growing up into distinct life, and the Koman 
See was gathering to itself power. Whilst the East was 
spending its energies in warfare upon the profound and in- 
tricate themes of speculative theology, the West was cement- 
ing its polity, and quietly accepted every opportunity to aug- 
ment the authority of its chief bishop. One means of the 
advancement of his power was the consideration with which 
he was regarded by the discordant parties, who not unfre- 
quently, from motives of policy, vied with one another in 
efforts to win his countenance and support. 

During this whole formative period, and down to the ex- 
tinction of paganism, the church was exposed to heathen in- 
fluences. Christianity, to be sure, was fi'om the first aggres- 
sive. There was a perpetual conflict between the new faith 
and the devotees of the old religion. The Gospel was to act 
as a leaven in the midst of pagan society, rejecting what was 
evil, and permeating and preserving what was right and in- 
nocent. But what security was there that the discrimination 
would always be correctly made ? K there was asceticism 



IN LA'lIN CHRISTIANITY. 37 

on the one hand, might there not arise a lax liberalism, an 
unwarrantable accommodation and indulgence, on the other ? 
The disciples were not taken out of the world ; would thej 
be wholly kept from the evil that is in it? Would not 
heathenism, which was entwined with every institution of 
society, which in a thousand forms confronted the Christian 
from his infancy to old age, which had inwoven itself, so 
to speak, in the whole texture of life, succeed in silently in- 
fusing something of its spirit, its beliefs, and its customs into 
the Christian community ? Would the Christian creed be 
maintained incorrupt ? Would Christian worship keep up 
its pure, spiritual character ? Would Christian conduct be 
kept free from the demoralizing eifect of heathen education 
and example ? K we find traces of paganism in ancient 
Christianity, there is no occasion for wonder, and it is no 
just ground of reproach against Christianity itself. Rather 
does the Gospel show its intrinsic vitality in not being stifled 
by doctrines and ceremonies heaped upon it, though alien to 
its nature, and in eventually proving itself sufficient to 
purify itself of these foreign, corrupt elements, thus regain- 
ing its native purity. 

The church was far more exposed to the infection of 
heathen opinions and practices after it grew in numbers, and 
especially after the conversion of Constantino, when it be- 
came dominant, and remained, save during the brief period 
of Julian's reign, the religion of the empire. In the first 
three centuries, the martyr-age of the church, it stood forth 
as a persecuted sect, and was far less likely to catch the spirit 
or imitate the ways of the worshippers by whom it was sub- 
jected to imprisonment, torture, and death, either by the in- 
strumentality of magistrates, or because left by them a victim 
to the violence of fanatical mobs. In the field of theology 
the church had early roused itself against the swarm of he- 
resiarchs and heretical sects which sought to amalgamate 
Christianity with Greek speculation and the fantastic dreams 
of Oriental philosophy. The battle with Gnosticism was 



38 THE OLD KOMAN SPIRIT AND KELIGION 

fought and won. Jndaizing Christianity had likewise re- 
ceived its death-blow, and its pertinacious votaries, pushed 
outside the pale o£ orthodoxy, had been left to prolong their 
existence as isolated, heterodox parties. It must not be for- 
gotten that heathenism was virtually overcome, the complete 
triumph of Christianity was insured, before the faith and 
worship of Christians had undergone essential depravation 
through the retroactive influence of paganism. Compara- 
tively speaking the first three centuries were pure. The 
victory of the Gospel was practically achieved by legitimate 
means. It was a victory fairly won. It was not by incau- 
tious compromise, it was not by timid surrender, that the 
Christian religion gained that firm footing in the Roman 
world from which it could not have been dislodged. The 
old religion was put on the road to extinction in the better 
and purer era which followed the first introduction and dis- 
semination of the Gospel. The fourth and fifth centuries 
are the period when the baleful influence of heathenism was 
chiefly felt ; and it was during this period that tendencies 
in the wrong direction, which, so far as they had existed 
previously, were kept within bounds, attained to a rank de- 
velopment. Constantino himself, in the mingling of Chris- 
tian and heathen opinions, tempers, and practices — the ad- 
mixture of gospel faith and pagan superstition — which be- 
longed to his character, was no unfit type of the mixed sys- 
tem which both his personal example and public policy 
tended to foster. It was in the fourth and fifth centuries 
that the rage for ecclesiastical miracles manifested itself. 
Then these supposed miracles were multiplied far beyond 
anything of the kind in the preceding period. This single 
feature of these later centuries may be taken as one sign of 
the altered temper of the church. After the emperors pro- 
fessed Christianity, it became popular with the indifferent 
and self-seeking, who found their profit in adopting the re- 
ligion of the cross. The inducements held out to produce 
conversion, in the shape of court patronage, offices, and 



IN LATIN CHEISTIANITY. 39 

other mercenary appeals, brought into the church a multi- 
tude of insincere or selfish proselytes. The ambition to 
swell the ranks of the baptized, stimulated many to make 
concessions to heathen tastes and preferences, and to pur- 
chase a superficial adhesion by a toleration of pagan customs, 
or by the introduction of usages not dissimilar to them. To 
not a few an immediate, seeming success was more attrac- 
tive* than a slower but more thorough advance. As the 
dread of heathen opposition passed away, the teachers of 
Christianity grew less vigilant, and concessions were insensi- 
bly made, such as threats and violence had not been able to 
extort. It was far more easy to withstand a direct attack 
than an infection. 

In treating of the infiuence of heathenism upon the 
church, several cautions are requisite : 

1. It is to be observed that similitude in the case of reli- 
gious phenomena does not always imply identity of origin. 
Beliefs, ceremonies, may exhibit a striking resemblance 
where there is no genetic connection. It is often rash to 
infer that an opinion or rite is derived from a particular 
quarter simply on the ground of likeness. The common 
source may be in impulses of human nature itself. The 
generic qualities of man being the same in all times and in 
every latitude, it would be surprising if in the religious 
sphere, as elsewhere, there should not frequently be a 
marked likeness in the actions of the human mind, whether 
the spring of them be sound or corrupt. The historical 
student perpetually meets with similar religious phenomena, 
with opinions, sects, and rites, in places and times remote 
from one another, and under circumstances where no com- 
munication can possibly be assumed. In the same commu- 
nity such phenomena may arise independently. There may 
be an epidemic where there is no contagion. ISTo one famil- 
iar with the history of religion can inspect a village of 
Shakers, in Massachusetts, without being reminded of other 
societies, such as the Jewish Essenes, the Egyptian Thera- 



40 THE OLD EOMAN SPIEIT AND EELIGION 

peiitge, and nnmerous widely-scattered monastic communi- 
ties which have existed nnder the shield of the church or in 
the ancient ethnic religions of the East. Yet there is no 
genetic bond between these modern sects in Isew England 
and the various communities referred to. The same impulses 
of human nature which generated anv one of these commu- 
nistic societies might give birth to any other. The Oxford 
Tractarian movement of the present century — to take an- 
other illustration — was Judaizing in its spirit. Dr. Ai'nold 
saw in it the very thing which the Apostle Paul denounced in 
the Epistles to the Galatians and Colossians. There was the 
same misconception of the Gospel, the same attempt to amal- 
gamate with it heterogeneous principles. Yet the leaders 
of Puseyism stood in no direct line of connection with the 
Judaizing party which gave Paul so much trouble. Those 
leaders did not learn their lesson, they did not borrow their 
distinguishing tenets, fi-om their ancient prototypes. Ten- 
dencies of the mind which were rife in the early days of 
Christianity revived and bore their natural fi'uit indepen- 
dently, and under circumstances quite different. Whately 
wrote a book in which he traced, with his usual sagacity, 
the corruptions of Romanism to their origin in certain ap- 
petencies of human nature. 

2. The points in which the church in the patristic . age 
departed from the sphit of primitive Christianity result not 
wholly from the influence of heathenism, but in an impor- 
tant degree fi^om the adoption of characteristic principles of 
the ancient Jewish Church. Roman Catholicism is, in some 
essential features, a return to the old dispensation. It is a 
restoration of parts of the Old Testament rehgion which the 
Gospel abolished. These discarded elements, outgrown in 
the later stage of Revelation, and giving way in the Gospel 
to something better, insensibly came back and incorporated 
themselves in the conceptions of Christian people and in the 
institutions of the church. This is eminently true of the 
prime corruption of Christianity, the doctrine of a special 



IN LATIN CHRISTIANITY. 41 

mediatorial priesthood — a class of heaven-appointed inter- 
cessors, and almoners of divine grace. Peter, in whom hier- 
archical supremacy is supposed to have first inhered, and by 
whom it is thought to have been transmitted to the succes- 
sive bishops of Rome, himself styled his fellow-disciples 
generally " a chosen generation, a royal jpriesthood, a pecu- 
liar people," whose office and privilege it was to celebrate 
the praises of God (1 Peter, ii. 9). This distinction of an 
immediate access to God which of old had belonged exclu- 
sively to the priests who ministered in the Temple, was 
made by Christ the prerogative of all believers. But more 
and more, as the church receded from the apostolic age, and 
the absolutely gratuitous character of forgiveness became 
obscured, the instinctive craving for priestly mediation led 
to a perversion of the Gospel, to the surrender of the exalted 
distinction conferred on all Christians, and to the imputation 
to the clergy of an office analogous to that of the Aaronic 
order. The ramifications of this erroneous idea, securing 
thus a lodgement in the Christian mind, were far-reaching. 
Its effects on the constitution of the church, on the preroga- 
tives of the ministry, and on Christian worship and life, were 
grave and enduring. Now this revolution, silently accom- 
plished in the first centuries, was, as I have said. Judaic in 
its character. Not that it was due to the conscious efforts 
of a Judaizing party, existing by itself and deliberately pur- 
suing this end. The Judaizers, whose explicit effort it was 
to assimilate Christianity to the Old Testament system, had 
been foiled. They had been vanquished. Pauline Chris- 
tianity gained the ascendancy over its adversaries. The 
authority of the Apostle Paul, in the second century as well 
as in the third, was held in due respect by the churches, and 
was disparaged only by sectaries and factions. But the 
Judaic transformation of which we are speaking crept in 
after this first great contest had been decided and the right 
side had triumphed. It arose in connection with a grad- 
ual transformation of theology in a legal direction, and as a 



42 THE OLD EOMAN SPEBIT AND RELIGION 

consequence of the quiet but powerful operation of general 
causes. The Old Testament Scriptures were in the hands of 
the earlj Christians. They were read in the churches. They 
were qnoted — at first with more verbal accuracy than the 
writings of the apostles. The relation of Christ to Moses, 
of the new dispensation to the old, was not accurately de- 
fined. Even now Christian theologians do not always agree 
in formulating this relation. The Gnostics had assaulted 
the Old Testament, and disparaged the ancient church and. 
religion with which the Gospel was known and felt to be 
somehow organically connected. These circumstances, how- 
ever, would have been quite insufficient to produce the revo- 
lution to which we have adverted, had not the natural, 
spontaneous desire of human, visible mediation rendered 
the notion of a special priesthood congenial to the minds of 
men. The elevation of the ministry to the rank of a priest- 
hood did not arise, then, from a formal usurpation on their 
own part. It was due mainly to a willing descent of the 
people to a lower plane of religion, which was guided and 
accelerated by the example of the system that was present 
to their eyes on the pages of the ancient Scriptures. The 
classical heathenism, therefore, is only in a very limited de- 
gree responsible for the intrusion of this idea, so portentous 
in its bearing on the history of the Christian church. 

3. It is not to be inferred forthwith that everything which 
the church took up from the environment in wiiich it was 
placed was of the nature of corruption. The theory of de- 
velopment, as it is expounded by Dr. IN'ew^man, although it 
requires much correction and qualification, contains in it a 
kernel of valuable truth. Christianity and the church w^ere 
not something absolutely fixed and immovable within limits 
set about them at the start. Christianity was to unfold its 
contents in contact with humanity, and to stamp with its 
approval whatever was true and good in the thinking and life 
of the communities into which it was to enter, and which it 
was to leaven with its spirit. The church w^as not rigidly 



IN LATIN CHRISTIANITY. 43 

shut up to an inflexible method of polity or to an established 
round of worship. It might lawfully adapt itself to nation- 
al peculiarities ; it might conform itself to all the varying 
circumstances in the midst of which it was to do its work. 
That work was to regenerate, not to extinguish, humanity. 
The truth on this subject seems to be that development must 
take place, if it take place aright, on the lines sanctioned in 
the 'New Testament, and also that on these lines nothing 
must be pushed to excess. Mozley, in his acute review of 
JS^ewman's Essay, has shown that the natural tendency to ex- 
aggeration and excess is sufficient of itself to engender cor- 
ruption if this tendency is not held in check. It is not suffi- 
cient that a particular sentiment is in itself innocent ; it 
becomes evil and dangerous the moment it is pushed into 
undue prominence or allowed to expand itself beyond meas- 
ure. There is a source of corruption which is distinct from 
the mingling of false ideas — germs intrinsically pernicious. 
For example, the worship of the Virgin, which we find in 
the church of the fourth and fifth centuries, may be called, 
and is called by Dr. Newman, the development of the senti- 
ments entertained towards Mary by the early Christians, by 
whom she was regarded as the most blessed of women. 
But was it not an excessive, an unhealthy, a pernicious ex- 
pansion of a feeling which was right and wholesome only 
when kept within a definite limit ? Kashness may be called 
a development of courage, foolhardiness and audacity the 
offshoot of boldness, timidity the product of prudence, 
stinginess of frugality, etc. There are many plants which 
need to be trimmed, and whose growth must be kept down ; 
otherwise their fruit is bad. The conclusion is that what- 
ever in the theology, the polity, the ethics, or the ritual of 
the church is at variance with the injunctions, or with the 
more intangible genius and spirit of the 'New Testament, is 
worthy of condemnation. Whatever is. not thus antagonis- 
tic to the standard, even though it may not be explicitly set 
forth there, is amenable to criticism, to be sure, but is not 



44 THE OLD eo:man spieit and eeltgion 

of necessity to be discarded. Between things enjoined and 
things forbidden there is a middle district, where, in the ab- 
sence of wi'itten law, there is no guide but a wise Christian 
judgment. 

It was the whole church, the church in the East as well 
as the West, that was modified by the influence of heathen- 
ism in the early ages. We have to notice both the effects 
which were due to the antique sph-it in general, to which 
Christians were everywhere exposed, and which left its mark 
upon Greek as well as Latin Christianity, and also, more 
particularly, the effects upon Latin Christianity, owing to 
the peculiar conditions in which it was placed. There was 
a general heathen influence, and a peculiar Latin influence 
superadded. The world in which the Gospel was dissemi- 
nated was Grgeco-Roman. [N'otwithstanding all that tended 
to render " the monarchy of the Mediterranean " homoge- 
neous, there was always an East and a West, separated, to 
be sure, by a fluctuating line, but characterized distinctly by 
the prevalence in the one of the Greek and in the other of 
the Latin influence. The division of the empire into the 
Eastern and Western, and later the corresponding division 
of the church, was not merely geographical, but was based 
on an essential diversity of character. Accordingly, the 
bent of theology was different in the East from that which 
was prevalent in the Western mind. Ecclesiastical organi- 
zation and life shaped themselves differently in the countries 
where the Latin tongue and the spirit of Rome had sway ; 
so that the Latin Church is a fit designation of the church 
of the West. So Latin Christianity is obviously diverse in 
character from the German or Teutonic Christianity, which 
finally broke loose from the tutelage of Rome, and at the 
Reformation separated itself, by a line nearly coincident 
with the race-division, from the Latin communion. To this 
last contrast we shall soon advert again. There are several 
points in which the distinctively Latin spirit transmitted it- 
self to the Latin Church. 



IN LATIN CHRISTIANITY. 45 

1. We see plainly in the Latin Church the Roman genius 
for rule — the capacity and disposition to exercise authority. 
This quality, which Yirgil attributes to his countrymen as a 
native trait, "^ and which the growth of Roman power and its 
long duration illustrate, appears to have passed over to the 
Roman Church and its bishops. A recently-recovered pas- 
sage of the earliest extant Christian writing after the apos- 
tles — the Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians — contains 
an admonition, almost authoritative in its tone, addressed to 
them by the Roman Church, in whose name Clement wrote. 
To be sure, had not circumstances all conspired to favor the 
upbuilding of the Roman ecclesiastical supremacy, no such 
domination could have arisen. But with the same truth it 
may be said that the talent and spirit of rule were an equal- 
ly indispensable condition. The love of order, the will to 
check insubordination wherever deference and obedience are 
conceived of as obligatory, were tendencies of the Roman 
mind which appeared in full vigor in the incumbents of the 
chair of St. Peter. 

For the papacy remained an Italian institution. It was 
built up, and its policy was moulded, by men in whom the 
old Latin spirit never died out. Leo L, at the crisis when 
the empire was falling in ruins about him, wielding the scep- 
tre of spiritual supremacy over distant provinces ; interposing 
to protect society from anarchy ; going forth to the camp of 
Attila to save Rome from his destroying host, and endeavor- 
ing, even though with but partial success, to shield the Ro- 
mans from Genseric and his Yandal army ; Gregory L, ex- 
ercising his pontifical rule in the midst of political tumult 
and disorder, and sending forth missionaries for the con- 
quest of new nations to the faith ; Hildebrand, insisting on 
the right of the church to govern itself independently of 
lay authority ; demanding of king as well as priest absolute 
submission ; sitting for days in the castle of Canossa, while 

* ^n. vi. 847-853. 



46 THE OLD EOMAN SPIEIT AND RELIGION 

an emperor stood without in the court-yard praying for ad- 
mission ; Innocent III., giving away crowns, and despatch- 
ing his legates to lay kingdoms nnder the Interdict — in these 
great ecclesiastics, the leaders and rulers of men, the old 
Roman dictators and proconsuls seem once more to have 
clothed themselves in flesh. There can be no doubt that 
fi'om an early day the bishops of Home found it more nat- 
ural and easy to assume authority for the reason that Rome 
was their abode. It had been a place of authority with 
which no other seat of power, ancient or modern, can be 
compared. It seemed to be only right and natural that 
Eome should rule. It was an association that affected the 
minds of the incumbents of the Roman See, as well as of 
the peoples whose allegiance they claimed. 

2. Closely allied to the quality just mentioned is what we 
may call the idea of imperialism. How easy it was for the 
Latin mind to associate this idea with the church ! To unify 
the church by combining all its parts in a common subjec- 
tion to Rome was a thought natural to Roman Christianity. 
The empire and the church were conceived to be each the 
counterpart of the other. In making Rome the capital of 
the empire, God had intended that it should be the metrop- 
olis of the church. Peter and his successors were to be to 
the ecclesiastical commonwealth what the Caesars had been 
to the civil. The emperors of the West in the fifth century 
lent their aid to the propagation and practical realization 
of this idea. When everything tended to disintegi^ation, 
the rulers of the state welcomed the unifying influence of 
the Roman ecclesiastical supremacy. '' Peace " — so runs a 
law of Yalentinian III., in 445 — " Peace can be universally 
preserved only when the whole church acknowledges its 
ruler." This was a policy directly contrary to that of the 
Byzantine princes in relation to the Eastern church, whose 
independence they destroyed. When the Western empire 
was broken up, and while it was so curtailed in its bounda- 
ries as to embrace only Germany and Italy, the outlying 



IN LATIN CHRISTIANITY. 47 

countries, long accustomed to tlie idea of imperial unity, saw 
no substitute for it except the spiritual rule of tlie popes. 
Roman, imperialism contributed, in a variety of ways, to en- 
gender and sustain imperialism in the church. 

3. The most conspicuous among the features of the Latin 
Church which it inherited from old Rome was the legal 
spirit. The comparative indifference with which the ancient 
Latin Church looked on the controversies in speculative di- 
vinity which convulsed the East, and the ardor with which 
the same Latin Church, in the fourth and fifth centuries, 
plunged into the discussions pertaining to the doctrines of 
sin, of free-will, and of the operation of divine grace, have 
often been pointed out. Mr. Maine thinks that the histo- 
rians of the church have come near but have not quite hit 
the solution, in referring this phenomenon to the "practi- 
cal " character of the Roman mind. The reason he declares 
to be that, " in passing from the East to the West, theologi- 
cal speculation had passed from a climate of Greek meta- 
physics to a climate of Roman law." Yes ; but what created 
this diversity of climates ? Was it not an ingrained philo- 
sophical turn in the Greek mind — '^ the Greeks seek after 
wisdom " — and an opposite bent of the Roman mind, which 
is properly described by the epithet '' practical " ? Roman 
politics, Roman jurisprudence, were the fruit of that peculiar 
temper of the people which created the atmosphere of which 
Mr. Maine speaks, and which the historians of theology have 
by no means overlooked. That the familiar principles and 
problems of the Roman law affected Latin theology there is 
no question. " Almost everybody who has knowledge enough 
of Roman law to appreciate the Roman penal system, the 
Roman theory of the obligations established by contract or 
delict, the Roman view of debts and of the modes of incur- 
ring, extinguishing, and transmitting them, the Roman no- 
tion of the continuance of individual existence by universal 
succession, may be trusted to say whence arose the frame of 
mind to which the problems of Western theology proved so 



48 THE OLD ROMAN SPIEIT AND RELIGION 

congenial, whence came the phraseology in which these 
problems were stated, and whence the description of reason- 
ing employed in their solution." * The Roman law which 
"worked itself into Western thought" was not the modern 
civil law, but the philosophy of jurisprudence which "may 
be partially reproduced from the Pandects of Justinian," 
As to legal phraseology, it is interesting to notice the recur- 
rence of terms from this source in the first Latin theological 
wiiter of prominence, Tertullian, who had been a student 
of Roman law and forensic eloquence before he embraced 
the ecclesiastical profession. He entitles one of his books 
" De prse scrip tione hsereticorum." The term jjroescriptio was 
a legal word signif jdng a demurrer, or something which shut 
a litigant out of court and closed his mouth. The fact which 
constitutes the p7xesc?'iptio, levelled by TertuUian at the per- 
verters of the Gospel, is the tradition of the apostles' teach- 
ing which is preserved in the churches. That the churches, 
so recently founded by the apostles, knew nothing of these 
heretical opinions was a bar to controversy, and determined 
the case at once. TertuUian in two other treatises intro- 
duces the legal word satisf actio (or the cognate verb), not 
to denote the atonement of Christ, to which it was after- 
wards applied, but rather as a description of penance, or of 
the self-imposed manifestations of penitence. In fasting a 
man " satisfies God " by denying himself food, in the im- 
moderate partaking of which he has offended him. f It is 
seemly for a woman to clothe herself in humble attire, that 
by every garb of satisfaction (satisf actionis) she may expi- 
ate the ignominy which she derives from Eve. J In follow- 
ing down the stream of Latin theology, from Augustine to 
the latest of the schoolmen, we might trace, in the handling 
of such topics as sin, the atonement, penance, indulgences, 
absolution, the silent influence of the conceptions which Ro- 
man jurisprudence had made current. Augustine, it may 

* Ancient Law^ p. 347. \ De Jejun.y c. 3. 

X De Cult. Femm., I., i. 



IN LATIN CHRISTIANITY. 49 

be added, was, in his whole genius and training, a Latin 
theologian. It is true that he was fascinated with Plato- 
nism. But he knew little Greek. Pie received his training 
in the schools of rhetoric. His reading was mainly in the 
Roman classics. The themes on which his mind was exer- 
cised were those which we have pointed out as chiefly inter- 
esting to the Latin mind. The word " Augustinism " denotes 
certain tenets respecting the bondage of the will under sin, 
and the operation of grace in delivering it. And Augus- 
tine's influence was dominant for a thousand years in the 
Western church. Apart from favorite inquiries in theology, 
the Roman Catholic Church is broadly contrasted with the 
Greek, in that the one has aimed more at the regulation of 
the life, at the management of the individual and of society, 
while the other has been mainly absorbed in maintaining 
orthodoxy of dogma. The epithet " orthodox," which the 
Greeks proudly assume, is significant of the spirit of their 
communion. To order the conduct of men as individuals, 
to sway the action of political societies, has been ever a lead- 
ing end of the Church of Rome. Herein it shows itself to 
be Roman. 

The contrast between Latin and Teutonic Christianity is 
hardly less striking. The ideal of ancient life, Greek as 
well as Roman, recognized everywhere restraint. Every- 
thing must be within measure. "Nothing too much" — 
nihil nimis — was the maxim which governed the creations 
of classical literature and art. Character and manners were 
subject to the same precept. There must be metes and 
bounds to all products of the imagination. Conduct must 
be shaped by rules. Especially did the Roman mind insist 
upon rigidly defining what is to be done. The old Roman 
religion was punctilious, formal, ritualistic. Salvation was 
by works. Worship must be carried forward in a prescribed 
manner. Each god must have his due, and was to be decor- 
ously honored. The Teutonic mind is spiritual, full of as- 
piration, chafing under the yoke of rules and forms. We 
3 



50 THE OLD ROMAN SPIRIT AND RELIGION 

see the Teutonic genius in the Gothic architecture, and in 
Shakespeare. The principle of personal independence — 
that element in European civilization — is ascribed by Guizot 
and other historians to the Germanic influence. The ideal, 
spiritual tendency of the German mind appeared in the 
mysticism of the latter part of the middle ages, which was 
the soil from which the E-eformation sprang up. Hegel as- 
cribes the Reformation to the " alte und durch und durch 
bewahrte Innigkeit des deutschen Yolkes," ^' which was not 
satisfied to approach God by proxy, or put religion outside 
of the soul, in sacraments and ceremonies, or make the vote 
of a council of priests the criterion of truth. The Teutonic 
mind revolted against the legalism which entered into the 
warp and woof of the Latin theology, and it craved an im- 
mediate access to the heavenly good offered in the Gospel. 
Personal communion with God, founded on the free forgive- 
ness of sin — the intimate communion of a child with a father 
— could alone meet the deep want of the spirit. Hence, 
when the banner of Protestantism was unfurled, the Ger- 
manic peoples, one after another, with alacrity ranged them- 
.selves under it. 

From these general characteristics of the Latin Church, in 
which the old Poman leaven discovers itself, let us turn to 
■consider certain more definite traces of assimilation to that 
ancient paganism which Christianity supplanted. 

1. The sort of polytheism introduced through the cultus 
of angels and of saints. Angelic beings, good and evil, were 
a prominent element in the current Jewish theology when 
the Gospel was first preached. Their existence and agency 
are recognized in the New Testament. But in the early 
church they came to hold a much more conspicuous place in 
the thoughts of Christians. Individuals, as well as nations, 
had each his tutelary angel, who watched over him. Some- 
times it was held that each person is attended by two spirits, 

* Phil, der Gesch. , Werke^ b, ix. 499 seq. 



IN LATIN CHRISTIANITY. 61 

one bad and the other good. The strict monotheism with 
which Christians were so thoroughly imbued at first, and the 
express prohibitions of the New Testament, long prevented 
them from addressing supplications to those invisible guar- 
dians. Ambrose, in the fourth century, is the first author 
quoted as countenancing this practice. " Obsecrandi sunt an- 
geli, qui nobis ad prsesidium dati sunt," are his words. The 
meaning is simply that angels are to be invoked to intercede 
for us. It was held that they carry the prayers of the disciple 
up to God. Hence it was natural that they, being within hear- 
ing, should be asked to intercede. But this perilous sort of 
intercourse with supernatural companions not divine did not 
stop at this point. Gradually angels came to be themselves 
the objects of homage and of a species of worship which, 
however, was theoretically distinguished fi'om that due to 
God and to Christ. The custom spread of appealing to 
them for other benefits than mere intercession. To this 
host of secondary, inferior divinities, close at hand to hear 
prayer and to bestow blessings, there were added a throng of 
martyrs and saints. The sanctity of martyrs caused their 
intercessory prayers, while they were alive, to be highly 
prized. The practice of appealing to them after their death, 
especially in the vicinity of their mortal remains, where it 
was imagined that their spirits lingered, easily gained a foot- 
hold. It was natural to look to these departed worthies for 
other good offices ; and so martja-- worship grew up by the 
side of angel- worship. Then there were eminent saints who 
had died a natural death — holy monks, for example— and to 
these supplications might with, equal reason, be directed. 
The indefinite fraternal remembrance of departed saints in 
the prayers connected with the Eucharist gradually trans- 
formed itself into a species of worship of them. Pi'ayers 
were offered to them instead oifor them. 

These beliefs and practices approximated Christianity to 
the contemporaneous heathenism, which tended to the doc- 
trine of the divine unity, and reduced the gods of the Pan- 



52 THE OLD EOMAN SPIEIT AND RELIGION 

theon to the rank of subordinates and instruments of the 
Supreme Power. Plutarch had ascribed much that was of- 
fensive in the old mythology to demons — inferior beings. 
The gods of the heathen were admitted even by Christians 
really to exist, but were considered to be evil, to be demons 
in the bad sense of the term. The worship of heroes and 
the deification of the emperors furnished hiunan objects of 
heathen devotion. A heathen of the fourth or the fifth century 
had only to substitute angels for the old subordinate divini- 
ties, the worship of martyrs and saints for the adoration of 
heroes, and of emperors whom, after they had abjured the 
old paganism, it was awkward to deify. He had before be- 
lieved in his protecting genius, who was honored on birth- 
days and might be invoked in any emergency. The atten- 
dant spirit he had only to christen as a guardian angel. Not 
that Christian worship sank down to the level of the former 
idolatry. The Christian doctrine respecting God, his exalted 
natm^e, and his holy attributes, might be obscured, and in a 
degree imperilled ; yet that doctrine continued to be taught. 
]^evertheless the heathen mind could find in the Christian 
system the counterpart of what it had cherished. This 
facilitated the transition from one system to another. And 
this resemblance was due, to a considerable extent, to the 
silent influence of paganism on the church. 

2. The localizing of worship. The feeling that God 
dwelleth not in temples made with hands, that neither to 
Mt. Gerizim nor to the Sanctuary of Jerusalem is the wor- 
shipper obliged to resort, but that the real temple is the 
human soul, was very much qualified after the church 
emerged from the age of persecution, came forth fi^om the 
catacombs, found it safe to erect costly edifices, and began to 
vie with the heathen in seeking for pomp and impressive- 
ness in the services of religion. Under the Christian em- 
perors heathen temples in many instances were handed over 
to Christians. In the interval between Valerian and Diocle- 
tian, while there was rest from persecution, splendid edifices 



IN LATIN CHRISTIANITY. 53 

were built for Christian worship. The last great persecu- 
tion, that under Diocletian, was signalized in its beginning 
by the destruction of one of them, the church at Nicomedia. 
A mysterious sanctity gradually attached itself to these 
places of worship. In the fourth century the names of 
saints came to be connected with them ; not at first under 
the idea that the churches were consecrated to them, but the 
saint whose name was affixed to the edifice was looked upon 
as a special patron and protector. It was not very long, 
however, before the church became a shrine for the cultus 
of the saint whose name it bore, and before churches came 
to be dedicated to these human objects of religious venera- 
tion. The graves of martyrs collected about them assem- 
blies for religious worship, especially on the anniversaries of 
their death. Churches and altars were reared over their re- 
mains. The bodies of departed saints were deposited in 
churches. Special efficacy was attributed to the devotions 
practised in the neighborhood of these relics. It was an old 
pagan tenet that cities and countries w^ere blessed and pro- 
tected by the relics of fallen heroes. Cities in Greece had 
been built over the graves of their founders, and worship 
had been rendered to them. The superstitious belief in the 
continuance of miracles served to surround the hallowed 
centres of worship with a constantly increasing sacredness. 

3. In hardly any particular was the deviation of the Latin 
from the primitive church more signal than in the introduc- 
tion of images and pictures as instrmnents and objects of de- 
votion. An intense antipathy to everything of this sort had 
been derived by the gentile converts to Christianity from 
their Jewish brethren. As late as the close of the second 
century, Clement of Alexandria speaks in condemnation of 
the art of painting altogether. Tertullian reproaches Her- 
mogenes with being a painter. Whether Tertullian objected 
to the art as being in itseK deceptive, as the same zealous 
father denounces the masks worn by actors for the reason 
that they partake of fraud, or whether his objection is 



54 THE OLD ROMAN SPIRIT AND EELIGION 

grounded on the circumstance that the heretical artist made 
pictures for heathen worship, is not clear. The dates when 
pictorial representations of a religious sort were first intro- 
duced among Christians it is not easy precisely to determine. 
A very important source of knowledge on this whole sub- 
ject is the catacombs. But here the dates are quite uncer- 
tain. De Kossi and Mr. J. H. Parker differ very widely 
from one another in their judgments on this point. Paint- 
ings which De Rossi considers to be early Mr. Parker would 
place at a much later date. The main difficulty grows out 
of the fact that the pictm-es in these subterranean burial- 
places were subjected to a process of restoration in the sixth 
century and afterwards, by which the characteristics indica- 
tive of the time of their origin were very much obliterated. 
The first pictures were symbols — as the dove, the anchor, 
the shepherd with a lamb on his shoulder — which were sub- 
stituted on goblets and seal-rings, and on sepulchral inscrip- 
tions, for mythological representations in vogue among the 
heathen. At first the cross, though a common token 
among Christians, by which both the Saviour's death and 
the humility of the Christian profession w^ere called to mind, 
was seldom depicted. Following upon this class of paint- 
ings were historical pictures of Scriptural events, such as 
the sacrifice of Isaac, under which, beyond the interest in 
the subject itself, was discerned a tj^e of the suffering of 
Jesus. Then followed the portraitm-e of apostles and saints. 
It was long before any representation even of the man 
Christ Jesus was permitted, and longer still before his pic- 
ture was allowed in chm-ches. Constantia, the sister of Con- 
stantine, sent to Eusebius a request that she might have an 
image of Jesus. In denjdng this request, Eusebius says : 
" Hast thou ever seen such a thing in a church thyself, or 
heard of it from another ? Have not such things been ban- 
ished throughout the whole world, and driven far off out of 
the churches ? " Constantia died in 354. Images of Jesus, 
whether pictorial or in sculptm-e, were fii^st used by hereti- 



IN LATIN CHRISTIANITY. 55 

cal sects like the Carpocratians. Under Leo I. (440-461) 
the image of Christ is first heard of in a Koman church. 
For several centuries church teachers forbade homage of 
whatever kind to be offered to pictures. Augustine dis- 
countenances the practice of worshipping an image, and of 
praying with one's eyes fixed upon it. The Synod of Elvira 
in 305 or 306, in the 36th canon, expressly forbids the in- 
troduction of pictures into churches, and the paying of hom- 
age to them. The language of the council excludes that 
qualified sort of worship which the Latin Church afterwards 
sanctioned. " ISTe quod colitur et adoratur " is the phrase.* 
But after the fourth century the custom spread of depicting 
apostles, martyrs, and other individuals of high repute for 
their sanctity, or renowned for their beneficence, upon the 
walls of churches. Augustine allows that they were often 
worshipped by the illiterate. When paganism ceased to be 
feared as a dangerous foe, the spirit of resistance to practi- 
ces of this kind lost its force. Roman Catholic scholars 
apologize for this innovation on the very ground that when the 
power of heathenism was broken, it was no longer needful 
to exclude the visible auxiliaries of Christian worship. It 
seems to be forgotten that these auxiliaries involved a revival 
of paganism in another form. It should be added that, in 
the fifth century, images of Christ and of the Madonna be- 
came common. It was in the mediaeval era of the Latin 
Church, however, that the devotional use of images and pic- 
tures reached its height and engendered the worst abuses. 

It is a curious fact that the heathen were in the habit of 
kissing the images of their objects of worship, as is now the 
custom in the Roman Catholic Church, especially in South- 
ern Europe. Cicero states that the mouth and chin of the 
image of Hercules at Agrigentum were in this way worn 
smooth by the lips of devotees. Lucretius adverts to the 



* See Hefele's History of Councils^ vol. i. Hefele evidently adopts the 
interpretation given above. 



56 THE OLD ROMAN SPIRIT AND RELIGION 

fact that the hands of pagan statues were worn down and 
polished by the kisses of those who passed by. The same 
effect was produced that we see now on the toe of the statue 
of St. Peter. 

4. The multiplying of festivals, including the substitution 
of heathen for Christian celebrations. Under the old hea- 
thenism, there were numerous festal days in honor of the 
various deities whose gifts were to be acknowledged and 
whose disfavor was to be deprecated. These, as we learn 
from the Eoman writers, were a serious draught upon the 
time of working people, and harmfully interrupted the 
labors of agriculture. Among Christians, in the first three 
centuries, there were but few festivals. Origen, in his book 
against Celsus, written in the latter part of his life — ^he died 
in 254 — makes mention of only three : the Parasceue (or 
Preparation), the Passover, and the feast of Pentecost. 
Clement of Alexandria, near the end of the second century, 
speaks of Epiphany as a festival of the heretical Basilidians ; 
and he clearly implies that there existed no commemoration 
of the nativity of Jesus. Toward the end of the third cen- 
tury, the feast of the Epiphany established itself in the 
Eastern church, but not until the second half of the fourth 
century did it spread in the West, where its significance 
was changed. It is first heard of in the West in 360. 
Christmas, on the contrary, a festival of Western origin, was 
not celebrated as a festival separate from Epiphany, in An- 
tioch, until the year 3T6. Chrysostom, in a sermon deliv- 
ered on the 25th of December, 386, states that it had ex- 
isted there for ten years. We find it fully established in 
Pome in the middle of the fourth century, and its origin as 
a distinct festival was probably not very long before. In 
connection with the close of the year there had existed a 
series of heathen festivals into which the Pomans entered 
with extreme delight. First were the Saturnalia, the jubilee 
of Saturn or Kronos, which marked the close of farm-work 
for the year, when the reins were given to merriment, when 



IN LATIN CHRISTIANITY. 57 

slaves could put on the clothes of gentlemen, and wear the 
badge of freemen, and sit at a banqnet, being waited on by 
their masters. Then came the Sigillaria (on the 21st and 
22d of December), when the streets were thronged, gifts in- 
terchanged among friends, wax-tapers being given by the 
humble to superiors, and when many sports were allowed 
which resembled those of Christmas in our times or of a 
Roman carnival. Miniature images of the gods and all 
sorts of presents were given to the young. Then followed 
the Brumalia — from Brmna, the shortest day— in honor of 
the sun, and connected with the Persian sun-god, Mithras, 
whose cultus had been brought to Rome imder Domitian 
and Trajan. This festival — dies natalis invicti solis — after 
the synchronous festival of Christmas was established, con- 
tinued, as Augustine informs us, to tempt away Christians 
to a participation in its heathen observances. Leo I. com- 
plams that the custom of paying religious homage to the sun 
still lingered among many Christians. Even among the 
Greeks, as late as 691, a council — the second Trullan — found 
it necessary to prohibit Christians from taking part in the 
celebration of the Brumalia. It is not improbable that one 
motive for fixing the Christmas festival just at that time was 
to shield weak Christians from the seductive influence of 
the pagan and often unseemly festivities to which they had 
been accustomed. In justice to the church, it should be 
said, however, that, generally speaking, where there were 
heathen festivals which led to riotous excess, the season of 
their occurrence would be set apart for prayer and penitence. 
This was the case with the ^N'ew Year's Festival of the hea- 
then, the CalendcB Januarim^ which was a scene of revelry. 
The festival of Christ's circumcision was transferred to the 
New Year — a festival utterly diverse in its origin and spirit 
from the boisterous heathen celebration occurring at the 
same time. The principal abuses in the church arose from 
the habit of commemorating martyrs and saints, the list of 
whom grew into an extensive catalogue. The Romans re- 
3* 



58 THE OLD ROMAN SPIRIT AND RELIGION 

garded the manes of their ancestors as in some sense divine. 
Thej presented to them not only sacrifices but other gifts, 
such as wine, milk, and garlands of flowers. They carried 
food to their sepulchres for the use of the dead. These 
banquets the Christians imitated by preparing feasts at the 
graves of the saints, of which these invisible beings were in- 
vited to partake. The little burial-chapels in the catacombs 
were places for the friends of the departed to meet in. 
There was sometimes a close parody of heathen myths and 
of the superstitions that grew out of them. On the 15th 
of July the Roman Catholic Church pays honor to Phocas, 
the patron-saint of sailors, who took the place of Castor and 
Pollux in the Christian mythology. He was said to have 
been a gardener at Sinope, and to have been put to death, 
under Diocletian, in 303. He was made the guardian saint 
of all who prosecuted voyages. Seamen sang songs in his 
praise. A place was set for him as an invisible guest at the 
table on shipboard, and on the safe arrival of the vessel in 
port his portion of its earnings was given to the poor. In 
this last act the benevolent spu'it of the Gospel was mani- 
fest, connected though it was with superstitious fancies. 
Let the amount of direct heathen influence in giving rise to 
the commemorations of the church be estimated as it may 
be, there can be no doubt that the pagans found in the mul- 
tiplied Christian festivals a welcome surrogate for those 
which they were called upon to give up. 

5. A great variety of customs and ceremonies, resembling 
those familiar to the heathen, but not included under the 
foregoing topics, were early adopted by the church. Yotive 
offerings are deserving of special mention. Heathen tem- 
ples, especially the temples of ^sculapius, were hung with 
gifts, left as tokens of gratitude for deliverance fi^om sick- 
ness, accident, or some other kind of trouble. The Yirgin 
and the saints were honored in a similar way ; and Christian 
churches exhibited, like the heathen sanctuaries, images of 
fingers, legs, and other parts of the body, made of silver or 



IN LATIN CHEISTIANITT. 59 

some other substance, in connection with other offerings be- 
tokening thankfulness for rescue from suffering or danger. 
There were shrines where each particular disorder was sup- 
posed to be miraculously healed bj some special saint who 
made the victims of it the objects of his benevolent care. 
This was one of the occasions of the pilgrimages which, hav- 
ing been a heathen, now became a Christian usage. The 
pagans had been in the habit of resorting to the temples of 
JEsculapius, or Isis, or Serapis, in order that the god might 
teach them in their dreams in the night-time how to rid 
themselves of their diseases. So Christians betook them- 
selves to their churches, to the end that the saint whose 
image was enshrined within them might, in like manner, 
inform them in their slumber how to regain their health. 
The introduction of incense among the ceremonies of wor- 
ship is a curious illustration of the incoming of heathen in- 
novations. The fathers of the second century, Athenagoras, 
Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, contrast the worship of 
Christians in this particular with that of the heathen. 
" The Creator," says Athenagoras, " does not require blood, 
nor smohe^ nor the sweet smell of flowers, nor incenseP 
Tertullian says : " We buy no frankincense ; " we offer " not 
one pennyworth of the grains of frankincense." Clement 
says that the perfume from the altar is '' holy prayer." The 
fathers of the third and fourth centuries give the same testi- 
mony. Arnobius (a.d. 298) speaks of the use of incense 
even among the heathen as a modern thing, and infers from 
this circumstance alone that it is offered vainly and to no 
purpose. In the same spirit write Lactantius (a.d. 303) and 
even Augustine (a.d. 396). The great Latin father approves 
of the statement which he quotes, that " frankincense and 
other perfumes ought not to be offered at the sacrifice of God." 
It was not until the sixth, or late in the fifth century, that 
incense was used in the ritual. It was brought into the 
church first merely as a disinfectant, to sweeten, and, as was 
thought, to pm-ify the air. Tertullian refers to this use of 



60 THE OLD EOMAN SPIEIT AND EELIGION 

it. Pseudo-Dionysius, early in the sixth century, is the first 
writer who adverts to incense as a part of Christian worship. 
He speaks of the priest censing the altar, and then going 
over "the whole circuit of the sacred place." ^ Of course 
the precedent of the ancient Jewish worship could be 
pleaded in support of the new practice. Thus it was the 
accident of the use of perfume for the homely practical- end 
of expelling bad odors, that brought it into Christian sanc- 
tuaries as an instrument of worship. One is reminded of the 
fact that, several centuries later, it was the frequent acci- 
dental spilling of drops of wine at the Eucharist that first led 
to the withholding of the cup froni the laity. Circumstances 
in themselves trifling have led to grave transformations in 
the ritual, and indirectly in the doctrine, of the church. 
After the censer was adopted as a utensil of devotion, the 
Christian priest pacing before the altar, attended by the 
thurifer with the swinging thurible in his hand, presented 
an almost exact image of what had been familiar to the eyes 
of visitors to heathen temples. The spectacle was one which 
the early Christians, had they been present to witness it, 
would have beheld with astonishment and reprobation, and 
one which the heathen, on the other hand, of an earlier day 
would have recognized as closely resembling a rite of their 
own. A heathen in the fifth century who should cross the 
threshold of a Christian church would observe much in the 
exterior arrangements of the building and of the service 
that would tend to make him feel at home. He would find 
much to remind him of the religion in which he had been 
bred. The very edifice might have once been a temple of 
pagan worship. 'Now it wore the name of that one of the 
host of invisible beings to whom it was specially sacred, and 
to whom supplications might be addressed with marked 
efficacy within its walls. All around there might not im- 



* The passages on this subject are collected by Bingham (b. viii., c. 
vi. § 21) and in Smith's Diet, of Christ. Antiquities. 



IN LATIN CHEISTIANITT. 61 

probably be seen votive gifts — donaria — like those which 
the heathen had been wont to see in his own sanctuaries. 
There was an altar with lamps burning near it, and with 
priests, in their official garb, standing before it ; there were 
genuflexions and processions, all stamped with a likeness to 
familiar parts of the heathen ritual. It is true that there 
were no bloody offerings, and that transubstantiation had 
not come to be an article of Christian belief ; but the 
Eucharist was called a sacrifice, and was invested with an at- 
mosphere of awe and mystery. 

It would be a rash, unauthorized inference that the church 
in the last half of the patristic period, or that the mediaeval 
church in which excrescences, like those referred to, in- 
creased in number and volume, was nothing better than 
heathen. In the constitution, creed, ceremonial, of the 
church after Constantine, truth and error, good and evil, 
were strangely, almost indissolubly, mixed. To call it a 
mere baptized paganism is to ignore the principle of life 
that ever inhered in it. The truth of redemption through 
Christ, with the facts presupposed and included in it, how- 
ever that truth may have been mingled with erroneous fan- 
cies and overlaid with cumbrous ceremonies, still constituted 
the life-blood of Christianity. 

A question that may occur to the reader of the foregoing 
pages is this : If Latin Christianity has thus proved itself 
congenial to the Latin nations, are they likely to be satisfied 
with Protestantism in its present shape ? Is it to be expected 
that the nations of Southern Europe will reconcile themselves 
to the system of worship which has proved acceptable to the 
peoples of German extraction ? This opens up the question 
of symbolism in religion. ]^o one can escape from symbol- 
ism altogether. The strictest Puritan kneels in prayer, and 
the act of kneeling not only expresses, but also facilitates, 
the inward prostration of the spirit. It is the form, the visi- 
ble embodiment, the material investiture, of the spiritual act. 
Even the Quaker at his meeting, in his sober mien, his quiet, 



62 THE OLD EOMAN SPIRIT AND EELIGION 

expectant attitude, expresses that waiting for the silent com- 
ing of the Spirit which is the posture of his mind. Who- 
ever bows or shakes hands with a friend, or embraces him, 
indulges in symbolism. A gesture is a symbol. It expresses 
an emotion, or a volition, or an. intellectual act. It is the 
living counterpart of the mental movement. Body and soul 
are so intimately connected that a sympathetic physical action 
spontaneously accompanies the action of the soul, and all the 
more when the soul is deeply moved. There is a ritual of 
etiquette, of friendship, of social intercourse, as well as of 
religion. The manners of a gentleman or of a lady are sym- 
bolical of refined feelings, of self-respect, and of regard for 
others, even in little things. Manners are a language. The 
feeling bodies itself forth instinctively in outward acts ; and 
cultivation here, as elsewhere, is not artifice, but the perfect- 
ing of nature. Symbolism is more natural and more grate- 
ful, more of a necessity of the spirit, as one may say, to one 
individual than to another. One person would feel himseK 
cramped if this mode of expressing thought and emotion 
were confined within the limits which another has no im- 
pulse to overpass. In different stages of culture there is a 
difference in the degree of satisfaction yielded by symbols. 
The pageants of the middle ages no longer interest the Euro- 
pean mind as they once did. Mediaeval ceremonies, which 
are still observed in connection with courts and royalty, strike 
one as curious relics of a by-gone time. They may seem 
puerile, and they may be in reality puerile— that is, they 
may have been the offshoot of a time when there was a dis- 
proportionate liveliness of emotion and fancy, such as be- 
longs to children. It is true evidently of certain branches of 
the human race that gesture, pantomime, all that falls imder 
the head of symbolical expression, form, and ceremony, are 
far more congenial — we might say indispensable — than is 
true of peoples of a more reserved temperament. The viva- 
cious manners of the Frenchman, and the more stiff and 
stolid ways of the Englishman, have always been to both the 



IN LATIN CHRISTIANITY. 63 

source of mutual diversion. The southern European nations 
are by natui-e more ritualistic than the northern. The brighter 
skies, the sunny landscape, the peculiar fruits and flowers, 
are not more characteristic of the south than is the love of 
music and song, of painting and sculpture, of brilliant dress 
and ceremony, and of expressive tones and gestures. "Wor- 
ship is naturally affected by this diversity of temperament. 
A New England Puritan thinks it natural to clothe himself 
in black in token of grief for a lost friend, and to march in 
a procession on the fourth of July. But he finds it more 
difficult to see how any one should be inclined to carry an. 
analogous symbolism into the services of religion. Now the 
exact limits of that symbolism in worship which is allowable 
under the Gospel do not admit of mathematical definition. 
There is no prescribed, unbending code in the New Testa- 
ment on this subject. The Saviour and the apostles preached 
often in the open air. They wore no official garments. 
Probably no one at present thinks that the cloak which Paul 
left at Troas was a surplice ; or that, if it had been, he 
would have suspended his work as a minister to wait for its 
arrival. Everything in the services of the primitive church 
was plain and simple. At the same time there was no law 
laid down in reference to these matters. There are certain 
principles, however, to which the church is bound to adhere 
in all the arrangements of worship. First, the symbol must 
be significant of a truth, and not of an error. The rite 
speaks to the observer, and the language which it utters 
must be true. An erroneous doctrine which has clothed it- 
self in symbol can be subverted only by abolishing the 
forms in which it is invested. Secondly, the symbol must 
be immediately intelligible. It must conform to the rules 
of allegorical art. If it fail to do this, it is obnoxious from 
an aesthetic point of view. Still more obnoxious is it from 
a religious point of view ; for it becomes then an opaque 
glass. It is a mirror in which nothing is reflected. It is a 
fossil from which the life is gone. It is a word in an un- 



64 THE OLD ROMAN SPIRIT AND RELIGION 

known tongue. The observance of unmeaning rites is a 
mechanical sort of devotion, equally dishonorable to God, 
who will be worshipped in spirit and in truth, and to the 
soul, which is degraded by the exercise of a blind, stupid 
homage, that is kept up in deference to authority or fi^om 
mere force of habit. The symbolical act or object must tell 
its own tale at once, and must continue to do so, or it is 
worse than useless ; for a rational being is harmed by the 
performance of irrational acts. Such acts are doubly mis- 
chievous when they come to be regarded as meritorious, and 
to be made a substitute, as to some extent they are very 
likely to be, for faith, love, and charity, and for good deeds 
springing from them. Formalism is the enthronement of 
rites in the place that belongs to the feelings and purposes 
of the heart. External observances are made by the formal- 
ist an end and not a means. They are valued for their own 
sake. If they do not supplant the dedication of the heart, 
which is the " reasonable " — that is, the rational or spiritual 
— service to be rendered to God by a Christian, they are 
placed on a level with it, and thus deprive it of the supreme 
place that of right belongs to it. " Obedience is better than 
sacrifice." Eites that are devoid of meaning are an offence. 
Formalism in religion is like artificial, affected manners in 
social life. They tend to stifie true, cordial feeling. Hon- 
est minds break through such barriers, and may be led by 
the energy of their protest to fall into rude and blunt ways, 
which are preferable to a hollow and unmeaning courtesy. 
Thirdly, all visible representations of the invisible God are 
irreverent in their nature. The law of the Old Testament 
on this subject was given to prevent idolatry. It was one 
great object, moreover, to educate the souls of men to the 
exercise of faith in realities which belong to an order higher 
than that of the visible world. This design is defeated 
when the Deity is depicted in human form, and the august 
mystery of his being brought down to the level of his crea- 
tures. In the ancient church, representations of God the 



IN LATIN CHRISTIANITY. 65 

Father, and any other than symbolical representations of the 
Holy Ghost, were rigidly excluded. The inveterate tenden- 
cy, especially of the uneducated mind, to identify the image 
with the being whom it is intended to represent is a suffi- 
cient reason why images of Jesus should not be used as aux- 
iliaries in worship. It is legitimate for the arts of painting 
and sculpture to give form to the ideals of Christ which the 
study of his human life inspires. An elevating influence 
may go forth from these creations of art. The Christ of 
Leonardo da Yinci, the study for the painting of the Last 
Supper, with the deep but patient sorrow that is stamped 
upon the countenance, gives new vividness to our conception 
of the " Man of sorrows." He must be an iconoclast indeed 
who would blot out of existence the descent from the cross 
as depicted in all its terrible reality by the pencil of Rubens. 
But such creations of art are not to be made the objects of 
worship, and worshippers cannot look to them in prayer 
without the risk of confounding the unseen exalted One 
with the imaginary portrait of him that is spread upon the 
canvas. Fourthly, the multiplying of symbols beyond a 
limit, which, of course, cannot be precisely defined, is evil in 
its influence. Crutches are good to support the weak, but 
are of no benefit if they supersede the natural use of the 
muscles. Pictures are useful in teaching, but, if employed 
beyond a certain limit, they keep the mind in a passive state 
that interferes with the due development of its powers. An 
elaborate ritual becomes a spectacle, in which, at the best, 
the soul is acted upon, with little exertion on its own part. 
There is a golden mean between a dazzling and distracting 
symbolism, complex and wearisome to a thoughtful mind, 
and a bald, frigid service, where no help is derived from the 
senses, and where the didactic element, in the form of ab- 
stract discussion, excludes every other. We may reject the 
idea of Archbishop Laud and the ritualists as to what is meant 
by worshipping God in " the beauty of holiness," but in fly- 
ing from Scylla we should not wreck ourselves on Charybdis. 



Q6 THE OLD EOMAN SPIRIT AND EELIGION 

Starting with, these principles respecting the nature and 
use of symbolism, we are prepared to allow to Protestant- 
ism the liberty of conforming its ritual to the temperament, 
taste, and national peculiarities of the several peoples among 
whom it may be planted. There are many customs which 
belong under the category of things indifferent, and which 
it may be a duty to discard under one set of circumstances, 
while they may be admitted without harm when the situa- 
tion is altered. The great conflict of the Puritans against 
sacerdotal usurpation led them to push theii' protest in cer- 
,tain directions further than is necessary at present, now that 
;tke battle has been fought and won,, and when in many com- 
munities the danger which they dreaded has passed by. A 
jigid adliesion to a particular method of worship, when there 
are j'easons for varying from it, is itseK formalism, one of 
the principal evils against which Puritanism contended. A 
.certain elasticity must be allowed in things external. The 
■criterion is to ascertain what conduces to the edification of 
the flock, not in some foreign latitude, but in the plape with 
respect to which the question is raised. Should the Protes- 
tant doctrines spread extensively in Latin countries, it is not 
impossible that forms of worship may arise specially conso- 
nant with the native characteristics of the inhabitants of 
those lands. There may arise a Latin Protestantism differ- 
ent in its external features fi^om Germanic Protestantism. 
There is no hurtful rupture of unity in such diversity. At 
.the Reformation, Protestantism in the southern countries 
tended to a particular type not strictly accordant with the 
German. The acceptance of the doctrine of justification by 
faith alone was often accompanied by a less degree of dis- 
affection towards important parts of the Romish ritual, and 
with a less degree of repugnance to the sacraments as for- 
merly administered. Li Prance, many who were inclined 
to Protestant opinions, like Margaret, the sister of Francis 
I., and the class in sympathy with her, occupied this posi- 
tion. The phenoinena of the Reformation in that age in 



IN LATIN CIIKISTIANITY. 67 

Italy and Spain indicate the natural bent of the Latin mind. 
The Old Catholic movement in our day seemed at first to 
hold out the promise of issuing in a new type of Protestant- 
ism which should be more satisfactory to such adherents of 
the Church of Rome as were evano;elical in their tendencies. 
Pere Hyacinthe, disposed though he was to head a revolt 
against the Pope and the popular type of Pomanism, did 
not find himself at home in the midst of Protestantism, 
with its absence of form and its churches locked up except 
on Sunday. He was evidently feeling after a system which, 
while it should be free from Romish abuses of doctrine and 
practice, should make a warmer appeal to the sensibility ana 
aesthetic feeling than any of the Protestant denominations 
presented. Pie wanted a system that should bring religion, 
more visibly and constantly, before the minds and close to the 
hearts of men. It must be confessed, however, that his main 
difficulty was that he did not see his way clear to lay the 
axe at the root of the tree by distinctly renouncing the sacer- 
dotal theory of the ministry. 'No effectual issue can be 
made with Romanism by those who cling to the theory of a 
mediatorial priesthood. The greatness of Luther is strik- 
ingly manifest in the boldness with which he assaulted the 
central dogmas of the opposing system, instead of expend- 
ing his strength on the outworks. In one of his early publica- 
tions, the Address to the Nobles of the German Nation^ 
he struck a vigorous blow at the doctrine that the clergy are 
a close corporation of priests on whom the laity are depend- 
ent for the sacraments. It was because he laid a strong 
foundation in principles, that his war against the papacy was 
something more than an irregular, guerilla contest, and re- 
sulted in a great and permanent conquest. The abortive 
character of the Old Catholic movement is due very much 
to its failure to lay hold of the principles on which alone an 
insurrection against the Church of Rome can maintain it- 
self. 



68 THE TEMPORAL KINGDOM OF THE POPES. 



THE TEMPORAL KINGDOM OF THE POPES * 

The great Popes in the middle ages endeavored to realize 
the splendid, but impracticable, conception of a theocratic 
empire, which should embrace all Christian nations, and of 
which the Pope was to be the head. The attempt was made 
to establish an administration such as would require wisdom, 
justice, and benevolence, as well as power, in a superhuman 
measure. The Popes renounce no pretension that has once 
been made ; but the extravagant claims of Hildebrand, In- 
nocent III., and Boniface YIII., are silently dropped — the 
claim to set up and pull down princes, and to settle inter- 
national disputes — and the revival of such claims at the 
present day would only excite ridicule. For several centu- 
ries, national interests have been strong enough, in the poli- 
tics of Europe, to override ecclesiastical and religious bonds 
of association. The design of this Article is not to discuss 
the obsolete claim of the papacy to a temporal supremacy 
over Christendom, but to touch on the salient points in the 
history of their own peculiar kingdom in Italy. 



I. 

On Christmas Day, in the year 800, in the old Basilica of 
St. Peter at Eome, Pope Leo III. placed the imperial crown 
on the head of Charlemagne. It was one of those particular 

* A Review, in ITie New Englander^ for January, 1867, of GeschicMe 
der Entstehung und Aushildung des Kirchenstaates. Von Samuel Sugen- 
heim. Leipzig, 1854; D Eglise et la SocieU Chretienne en IQQl . Par M. 
Guizot. Quatrieme edition. Paris, 1866. 



THE TEMPOEAL KINGDOM OF THE POPES. 69 

events or scenes in which a great epoch is signalized and 
pictured, as it were, to the eye. It is a landmark terminat- 
ing the first period in the annals of the Popes' temporal 
sovereignty. 

During the first three centuries, while the church was a 
persecuted, but rapidly growing, sect, the Bishop of Home 
was steadily acquiring moral influence and hierarchical au- 
thority. After Constantino began to take the church mider 
his patronage — his edict of toleration was issued in 312 — 
and after he and his successors not only granted to the 
church the right to receive legacies and hold property, but 
also enriched it by their own offerings, the E-oman bishops 
were in a position to profit greatly by these new privileges. 
Gradually they became possessed of extensive estates, not 
only in Italy, but also in Sicily and Gaul, and even in Afri- 
ca and Asia. In the time of Gregory the Great (590-604), 
their annual income from the estates near Marseilles alone 
amounted to four thousand pieces of gold. It is true that 
this " patrimony of Peter," as even then it w^as called, was 
held by the Pope as a private proprietor or trustee, and not 
as a sovereign. For example, the Papal lands in Gaul were 
subject to the king of the country, like the lands of any 
other proprietor. Yet the control of the Pope over exten- 
sive estates would border, in some particulars, upon that of 
a sovereign, and the rudiments of a secular dominion are 
properly discerned in this early relation. The downfall of 
the empire left the Poman Pontiff the most important per- 
sonage in all the West. But during the score of years (from 
551 to 568) that followed the conquest of Italy by the gene- 
rals of Justinian, and preceded the partial overthrow of the 
Byzantine rule in that country by the Lombards, the coercion 
exercised upon the Popes by the tyrants of Constantinople 
serves to show how much the papacy was to be indebted for 
its growth to the absence of an overshadowing power in its 
neighborhood. 

To the Lombard conquest the Popes owed their secular 



70 THE TE]^rPORAL KINGDOM OF THE POPES. 

dominion. That which infused into them the greatest terror 
turned out providentially to be the greatest benefit. This bar- 
barian people, partly Arian and partly pagan in their religion, 
overran the larger portion of Italy. They left to the Byzantine 
emperor, in middle and northern Italy, besides Rome, and a 
few other fortified places, a strip of territory along the sea- 
coast, in which were included Ravenna, the seat of the so- 
called Exarch, or Governor-General, under the Eastern em- 
pire, and the -^ve cities (Pentapolis), Ancona, Sinigaglia, 
Eano, Pesaro, and Rimini. The various cities outside of the 
Exarchate, of which Rome was one, had been placed under 
subordinate governors, called diikes; After the Lombard 
invasion, the Byzantine rule over the places which had not 
yielded to the conquerors was little more than a nominal 
sovereignty. In this time of anarchy and distress, the Pope 
was the natural leader and defender, as well as the benefac- 
tor, of the people whom the emperor was unable to protect. 
When the quarrel broke out between the Pope and Leo the 
Isaurian, in regard to the worship of images, the Romans 
warmly sided with their bishop against the iconoclastic em- 
peror. They even drove out the Byzantine duke, who had 
long possessed only the shadow of power, and they would 
have proclaimed their independence and a republic, had not 
the Pope withstood them, his motive being an intense 
anxiety lest imperial power should f ah into the hands of the 
Lombard king. He naturally chose to keep up a nominal 
connection with the Eastern empire, which brought no real 
inconvenience, in preference to falling under the sway of his 
aggressive, powerful, and heretical neighbor." It was evi- 
dent that the Lombard kings were determined to extend 
their dominion over Italy. Yet Pope Zacharias, in return 
for favors rendered to them, obtained fi'om them the gift, 
first of Sutri, and then of four other towns, which had been 

* See, on this point, Sugenheim's work (the title of which is given 
above) , p . 68 seq. This very thorough monograph throws light on many 
diflBcult questions connected with our subject. 



THE TEMPORAL KINGDOM OF THE POPES. 71 

wrested by them from tlie Greek empire. The Pope, though 
still the subject of that empire, set up the principle that 
these places, being the property of the Lombards by right 
of conquest, might be withheld from the emperor and 
granted to him. In truth, this gift from the heretical enemy 
was the beginning of the Papal kingdom. But when the 
haughty Aistulph, in 749, mounted the throne of the Lom- 
bards, and when, having seized upca Ravenna, the Exar- 
chate, Pentapolis, and the Greek territory on the Adriatic 
as far as Istria, he turned his arms against Pome, the Pope 
saw no way of escape from the imminent peril into which he 
was thrown, except by imploring the intervention of Pepin, 
king of the Franks. Fortunately Pepin was obliged to the 
Pope for lending a religious sanction to the usurpation by 
which he had dethroned the Merovingian family, the foun- 
der of the new dynasty having been anointed, in 752, at 
Soissons, by Boniface, according to the direction of Zacha- 
rias, and having been absolved afterwards from his violated 
oath of fealty to Childeric III., the last representative of the 
old line. In two campaigns (754-5), the Lombards were de- 
feated, and expelled from their new conquests ; and Pepin 
now gave to the Pope the Exarchate and the Pentapolis. 
He had won these territories, he said, not for the Greek 
emperor, but for St. Peter. 

What was now the position and what were the rights of 
the Pope, as a secular prince ? This is a nice and difficult 
question to determine. The Pope received the name and 
title of Patricius over the Exarchate, while Pepin became 
Patricius of Rome. In regard to the donation of Pepin, it 
is a controverted question whether it made over to the Pope 
the rights of sovereignty, or only the property and incomes 
which had formerly belonged to the Byzantine emperor. 
The great German lawyer, Savigny, is decidedly of opinion 
that the rights of sovereignty were included."^ Sugenheim 

* Savigny, Das Romisclie Eecht^ vol. i. , p. 358. 



72 THE TEMPOKAL KINGDOM OF THE POPES. 

holds that this was probably not the original idea, but rather 
the interpretation snccessf nil J affixed to the donation by the 
Popes.* The gift of Fepin was made to the Pope and the 
Roman Eepublic: and it is further declared by Savigny 
that " the Eoman Republic," as the representative of which 
the Pope appears, " was not the city of Rome, still less the 
Greek empire;" "it was rather the old Western empire, 
which in this small compass, though as yet without a visible 
head, was again restored, the idea of its formal restoration, 
which was soon to follow, being, perhaps, already present." f 
It seems clear that Patricius was an honorary title which 
carried with it no very definite prerogatives. It involved 
the right and duty of affording protection. "We may con- 
clude, then, that by this transaction the Pope acquired, in 
reference to the greater part of what was afterwards called 
Romagna, a station similar to that held by the former Ex- 
archs, with the difference that the superior to whom he 
would be subordinate was an ideal personage, the future 
head of the Western empire, which had not then been 
reconstituted. In respect to Rome, it is remarkable that the 
Pope still kept up the show of allegiance to the Eastern 
empire, his motive being a jealous desire to prevent the Pa- 
triciate of Pepin over the eternal city from passing into an 
imperial function. 

Such was the position of the Pope, as a temporal ruler, 
up to the time of Charlemagne. The overthrow of the 
Lombard kingdom by this monarch, in 773, was followed by 
a confirmation of the gift of Pepin to the Pope, increased by 
the addition of a few places in Tuscany. Charlemagne had 
acquired a supremacy and a conceded authority which his 
coronation by the Pope recognized rather than created. The 
patriciate, by the course of events, had grown into the im- 
perial office ; and the treaty of Charlemagne with the East- 
ern emperor, J^icephorus, in 803, formerly designated the 

* Sugenheim, p. 27. f Savigny, p. 361. 



THE TEMPOEAL KINGDOM OF THE POPES. 73 

portions of Italy with which we are concerned, among the 
territories of the Western emperor. 



II. 



Toward Charlemagne and his immediate successors the 
Popes stood in the relation of fendal dependence, analogous 
to that held by other ecclesiastical nobles who were subjects 
of the empire, although the Roman bishop, in point of eccle- 
siastical and spiritual dignity, had, of course, the highest 
rank. The Popes were obliged to take an oath of fidelity to 
the emperor, acknowledging him to be their lord and judge. 
Not only was their election incomplete without the imperial 
sanction, but they were held to account when charges were 
preferred against them. Thus an inquiry was instituted 
against Leo III. for executing certain Pomans ; and at the 
time when Lothaire I. was crowned at Pome, in 823, Pope 
Paschal I., on the complaint of the abbot of the monastery 
Farfa, was obliged to restore to the latter all the property 
which had been unjustly taken from his monastery. 

The Popes were constantly striving to release themselves 
from their subjection to the princes of the family of Charle- 
magne. The end they had in Adew was to free themselves 
from the need of procuring a ratification of their election 
from the emperor ; and they even sought to give currency 
to the idea that the imperial ofiice was bestowed by them. 
Occasionally, an able man like Nicholas I. (858-867), favored 
by circumstances and strengthened by popular support, real- 
ized in a measure the Papal aspirations after independence 
and control. But, as a general rule, through nearly the 
whole of the ninth century, the Poman bishops were foiled 
in these attempts. They profited, however, by the conflicts 
in which the Frank princes were engaged with one another, 
and in which they were frequently induced by the interest 
of the hour to appeal to ecclesiastical arbitration and to ad- 
4 



74: THE TEMPOEAL EilNGDOM OE THE POPES. 

vance their pretensions bj obtaining episcopal unction. The 
disorders and divisions in the Frank empire were rather 
fomented than hindered by the ambitious Popes, who, in the 
turmoil that followed the downfall of that empu-e, gained 
for a time their long-coveted independence.^ 

Their success proved their worst misfortune. The next 
century and a half is the most disgraceful era in the whole 
history of the papacy. The dangers to which the Popes 
were exposed in the midst of the wild factions of contending 
Italian nobles led them to parcel out a great part of their 
territory outside of Rome among feudatories, as a reward for 
services rendered and expected. The same weakening of the 
central authority, the same struggles for independence on 
the part of the vassals, and for ascendancy on the side of 
their liege, ensued here as among the nations north of the 
Alps. The easy subjection of the Popes to the Frank princes 
was exchanged for a galling servitude under violent and ra- 
pacious nobles. For a long series of years the Counts of 
Tuscany, and after them the Counts of Tusculum — two 
branches of the same house — disposed of Pome and the Pa- 
pal office at their will. Three prostitutes, Theodora, and her 
daughters, Marozia and Theodora, made and deposed Popes, 
even placing their paramom-s and bastard sons in the chair 
of St. Peter. At length, in 933, Pope John XL, who was 
perhaps a son of the vile Pope Sergius III. by Marozia, was 



* It was in the ninth century that the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals ap. 
peared — that collection of forged papers by which the prerogatives con- 
ceded to the Pope in that age, and even higher prerogatives than were 
generally conceded to him then, were ascribed to his predecessors in the 
first three centuries. Among these spurious documents was the pretended 
deed of Constautine, giving to Pope Sylvester his Western dominions. 
The forgery is a clumsy one. For example, the author of it conceives of 
the Western empire as it was in the eighth century — as comprising only 
some provinces of Italy. The spurious character of this document is gen- 
erally acknowledged. Yet Baronius, and some other Catholic writers, 
seek, against all evidence, to maintain the fact of such a gift. See Gies- 
eler, Church History, vol. ii., p. 118, n. 



THE TEMPOEAL KINGDOM OF THE POPES. 75 

imprisoned by liis own brotlier Alberich in the castle of St. 
Angelo, and was forced to act, even in spiritual things, as 
his passive instrument. Until the year 954, this Alberich, 
under the title of Prince and First Senator of the Romans, 
ruled with despotic authority over the city and the adjacent 
territory ; and, after the death of John XI., set up in suc- 
cession fom- Popes, whom he restricted to the exercise of 
their spiritual functions. At his death all power fell into 
the hands of his son Octavian, a vicious youth of less than 
eighteen years of age, who, on assuming the tiara, set the 
fashion, which has since been copied, of adopting a new 
name, and called himself John XII. To protect liimseK 
against Berengar II., King of Italy, this profligate wretch 
invoked the aid of Otho L, the German emperor ; but the 
interposition of Otho brought but a momentary relief from 
the frightful disorder and degradation in the affairs of the 
papacy. Finally, the German emperor, Flenry III., ap- 
peared to reestablish, with a strong hand, the imperial power 
in Italy ; and at the Synod of Sutri, in 1046, he caused the 
Papal chair to be declared vacant, and, the three rival claim- 
ants having been summarily set aside, one of Henry's own 
bishops was elected to the vacant place, under the name of 
Clement II. From this time the influence of Hildebrand 
becomes predominant. The Synod of Sutri marks an epoch 
in the record of the Papal dominion. The imperial power 
and influence are seen at their culminating point. 



III. 



A notable event in the progress of the Papal dominion in 
Italy was the famous bequest of Matilda, Countess of Tus- 
cany, to the Papal See. This enterprising and gifted w^oman, 
the fast friend and supporter of Hildebrand, bequeathed her 
territories, comprising a fourth part of the Peninsula, to the 
Homan Church. Whether this gift was intended to include 



76 THE TEMPOEAL KES"GDOM OF THE POPES. 

anything more tlian lier allodial property, and what portion 
of her possessions was allodial and what held in fief, it is im- 
possible to saj. To dispose of territory held in fief would 
be utterly contrary to law, and to all the ideas of the time. 
But the ambiguous character of the bequest in these respects 
opened the way for the assertion of a claim on the part of 
the Popes to the whole, and contributed eventually to the 
long and bitter strife with the emperors. Gieseler observes 
that " because the feudal relations of these lands to the em- 
peror were at that time much relaxed, the Pope was inchned 
to regard them as allodial, while the emperor, by virtue of 
his ancient right, laid claim to all landed possessions at least, 
as fiefs of the empire." * Certain it is that the Popes were 
determined to incoi-porate the fiefs in their own kingdom, es- 
pecially the most valuable of them, Tuscany, Spoleto, and 
Camerino. 

In the early part of the twelfth century there appeared a 
fi-esh element of disturbance in the Papal kingdom, of a 
portentous character. This was the newly-awakened spirit 
of the Roman people. Heretofore, the populace of Rome 
had been of little account. Emperor, Pope, and nobles, in 
all their conflicts with one another, had united in keeping 
down the people, and reducing them to political insignifi- 
cance. But now a new era had arisen. The aspirations of 
the Lombard towns after municipal independence and free 
government had spread southward. The popular feeling in 
Rome found an organ and a leader in the disciple of Abe- 
lard, Arnold of Brescia. He demanded that the clerical or- 
der, fi'om the Pope do^vnwards, should give up their claim 
to secular rule, and should possess no secular property. He 
was heard with enthusiasm, and his docti'ine spread like a 
contagion. After he had been driven out of Italy by the 
anathema of the second Lateran Council, the Roman people 
renounced their allegiance to Innocent H., and, in 1113, set 

* G-ieseler, Church History (Prof. Smith's ed.), vol. i., p. 272. 



THE TEMPOEAL KINGDOM OF THE POPES. 77 

up a government of their own, placing supreme power in the 
hands of a senate. They were strengthened by the arrival 
of Arnold with several thousand Swiss soldiers. In an un- 
successful attack upon the new government in the capitol, 
Pope Lucius II. was hit with a stone, and received a mortal 
wound. The people wished to restore the old imperial con- 
stitution, and accordingly invited Conrad III., and after- 
wards Frederic I., to assume this imperial character and 
make their abode in Rome. Pope Hadrian lY. persuaded 
the Romans to banish Arnold, w^hose unpractical and imag- 
inative spirit had hindered him from succeeding in his 
plans. By the Emperor Frederic, who was bitterly hostile 
to republicanism, and was bent on humbling the Lombard 
towns, as well as desirous to receive the imperial crown, 
Arnold was delivered up to the Pope, who made such haste 
to destroy him, that the Romans, who rushed ,to the Piazza 
del Popolo to effect a rescue, found only his ashes. 

We pass to the Pontifical reign of the ablest of the Popes, 
a man of great virtues, shaded by serious faults, Innocent 
III. All the circumstances, especially the minority of Fred- 
eric II., and the disordered state of the empire, facilitated 
the accomplishment of the ends which Innocent set before 
him. He drove the vassals of the empire out of the terri- 
tory of Matilda, taking possession of the March of Ancona, 
the Dukedom of Spoleto, the Earldom of Agnisi, the Mar- 
quisates of Tuscany, Radicofani, Aquapendente, Montefias- 
cone, and the rest ; so that his admiring biographer, Hurter, 
claims for him the honor of being the founder of the States 
of the Church. More important was the concession which 
he extorted from Otho lY., one of the three competitors 
for the imperial crown, as the condition of supporting his 
cause, and of declaring in his favor. On the eighth of 
June, 1201, Otho bound himself by a solemn engagement 
to protect, to the b^st of his ability, all the possessions, rights, 
and honors of the Apostolic See ; to leave the Pope in un- 
disturbed possession of the territories which he had won 



78 THE TEMPORAL KINGDOM OF THE POPES. 

back, and to help the Holy See both in defending them, 
and reconquering those not yet gained. Under these pos- 
sessions were embraced all the territory from Radicofani 
to Ceperano, also the Exarchate of Eavenna, the former 
Pentapolis, the March of Ancona, the Dukedom of Spoleto, 
the allodial property of Matilda, the Earldom of Bertinaro, 
together with the bordering territories which the Eoman 
bishops had acquu-ed from the Western emperors since the 
days of Louis the Pious. The provinces here enumerated 
comprise the principal territories of the modern Papal 
States. The violation of his agreement by Otho turned In- 
nocent's friendship into bitter hostility, and ultimately led 
him to bring forward the young Frederic of Sicily (Frederic 
H.), and powerfully to support his pretensions to the em- 
pire. This support was not given, however, until Frederic 
had renewed and ratified the concessions previously made by 
Otho. The equally perfidious violation of this* treaty by 
Frederic was a leading cause of that long and dreadful con- 
flict with the Popes, which ended in the complete overthrow 
of the house of Hohenstaufen. 

In the progress of this conflict, the cities in the Papal 
kingdom wrested concessions from the Popes, by which they 
acquired for the time a large measure of municipal fi-eedom 
and independence. It is remarkable that while the Lom- 
bard towns followed the Po2:)es in their contest against the 
Ghibelline or imperial interest, the immediate subjects of 
the Holy See were often found on the other side. This was 
owing to the fact that, although the Popes, out of hostility 
to the emperors, and the desire to gain the \dctory over 
them, allied themselves to the freedom-loving cities, they 
were still at heart inimical to republicanism, and were im- 
politic enough to betray their real temper and policy to- 
wards their own cities, in case no pressing emergency com- 
pelled an opposite course. By the aid of Charles of Anjou, 
to whom they had given the crown of Sicily, they succeed- 
ed in recovering Rome fi'om the imperial party, and destroy- 



THE TEMPORAL KINGDOM OF THE TOPES. 79 

ing Conradin, tlie last of tlie Hohenstaufens. In 1275, they 
had the satisfaction of receiving from Eudolph of Plapsburg 
a full and most explicit ratification of the deed of surrender, 
which Otho lY. and Frederic II. had given and disregarded. 
This deed has been properly considered the Magna 
Chaeta of the Pope's temporal dominion. 

lY. 

It was one thing to acquire a title to these rich posses- 
sions, and quite another thing to get and to retain them. The 
turbulent cities, accustomed now to a good measure of self- 
government and strengthened by privileges granted by the 
Popes in times of distress, could not easily be brought into 
subjection. The factions of Guelfs and Ghibellines raged 
in them, and the result, as in other Italian towns, was the 
elevation to power of certain noble and distinguished famil- 
ies. Such werd the houses of Polenta in Ravenna, of Mala- 
testa in Pimini, of Yarano in Camerino and in other places 
in the March of Ancona, and of Montefeltro in Urbino. 

It was the repugnance of Boniface YIII. to the family of 
Colonna, whose overshadowing influence at Rome became 
intolerable to him, that finally led to " the Babylonian cap- 
tivity," or the residence of the Popes for about seventy years 
at Avignon. Determined to get possession of their fortified 
places, Boniface sought means of capturing the apparently 
impregnable stronghold, Palestrina.'^ At length he applied 

* The truth of the story relative to the transaction with Guido di Mon- 
tefeltro is denied by Cardinal Wiseman in his Article on Boniface VIII. 
{Essays on Various Subjects, vol, iii.). The story is given by many 
authors, including Sismondi {ReftubUqiies Italiennes, tome iii., p. 91). 
Sismondi's authorities are Dante, his commentator, Benvenuto da Imola, 
and two contemporary chroniclers, Feretto Vincentino and Pipino, in 
Muratori {Script. Ital, torn, ix., pp. 731, 970). Dante {Inf., xxvii., 
81) styles Boniface " Lo principe di nuovi farisei." It is represented that 
Boniface had absolved Guido for his wicked counsel before it was given. 
This did not save him from hell, since 

" No power can the impenitent absolve." 



80 THE TEMPOEAL KIXGDOM OF THE POPES. 

for aid to a famous old soldier, Giiido de Montefelti'o, a for- 
mer enemj of the Popes, but now reconciled and passing 

Dante makes G-uido, in the midst of the flames, relate circumstantially the 
fatal seduction by which " the chief of the new Pharisees " misled him, 
having given him the promise of impunity. Another not at all flattering 
allusion to Boniface is In Parad.,. xxyii., 22; and elsewhere {T/if., xix. 
52). Dante condemns him to hell. In the last passage, the spirit in hell 
mistakes Dante for Boniface, who, at the date of the poet's vision, was not 
dead. It is the same canto in which Pope Xicholas Y. is doomed to a 
like fate, and in which, in allusion to the pretended gift of Constantine 
to Pope Sylvester^ the poet exclaims : — 

" Ah. Constantine ! to how much ill gave birth, 
Not thy conversion, but that plenteous dower 
Which the first wealthy father gam'd from thee." 

In regard to Ferreto, Muratori, as Wiseman truly states, adds a note to 
Ferreto's account of Guido, in which the critic questions the truth of the 
story. He observes : — " Probosi hujus facinoris narrationis fidem adjun- 
gere nemo probus velit quod facile confinxerint Bonifacii aemuli," etc. 
In the Anncdi cV Italia^ vol. xi., p. 648. the same critic expresses his 
doubt of the truth of the anecdote respecting Guido, though he quotes G-. 
YiUani {Istor. Fiorent., lib. viii., c. 6) to the effect that Boniface was 
troubled by no scruples when there was something to be gained. Mura- 
tori also suggests that the story of the advice of G-uido may have arisen 
from the subsequent events — namely, the breach of faith with the Co- 
lonnas. This last fact he appears not to reject. Although it is called in 
question by Wiseman, it rests upon strong evidence. In the proceeding 
before Clement YIL, after the death of Boniface, the Colonnas averred 
that they had been cheated in the manner described. The proofs are 
given in Sugenheim. p. 208. The circumstances are stated by G. Yillani, 
lib. viii., c. 64. Yillani wrote soon after the event. See also, Fleury, 
HUt. Ecdesiast.^ tom. xviii., p. 240. Considering the manner in which 
the anecdote, as to the advice of Guido, is given by Dante, even though 
his Ghibelline hostility to Boniface, as Muratori observes, impairs the 
value of his testimony, — and considering, also, the other authorities in its 
favor, we are hardly justified in rejecting it as false. It is believed by 
Sugenheim, by Milman {Latin CJirUtianity ^ vol. vi., p. 228) by Schrockh 
{KircliengescJiicTite^ vol. xxvi., p. 531)— who supports his opinion by an 
argument — and by others. Schwab, in the Koman Catholic Tlieologische 
Quartalsclirift (No. 1, 1866), admits that Wiseman, as well as Toste, the 
Catholic biographer of Boniface, in their attempted vindication of him,- 
are biased by excited feelings consequent on the injustice which they 
suppose him to have suffered. 



THE TEMPORAL KINGDOM OF THE POPES. 81 

the evening of liis days in a cloister. The veteran de- 
clined to take the field, told Boniface that the place could 
not be captured by force of arms, but advised him, as a 
means of obtaining it, to promise much and perform little. 
The Pope but too faithfully obeyed the iniquitous counsel. 
This perfidy still further exasperated the great family which 
he was seeking to extirpate. It was Sciarra Colonna who, 
in connection with William of Nogaret, the emissary of 
Philip the Fair, made an attack upon the person of the old 
Pope, then staying in Anagni, and infiicted such injuries 
that he died on the 11th of October, 1133. The papacy, 
brought under French influence, was now transferred to 
Avignon.* Contrary to a common idea, the residence of the 
Popes in France did not result in the weakening, but rather 
in the temporary restoration of their power as secular 
princes. This unexpected result was due to several causes. 
The local djmasties which had risen to power in Italy in the 
course of the last half of the thirteenth century, were divi- 
ded amongst themselves ; and the Pope could skilfully avail 
himself of their mutual jealousies and conflicts to turn one 
against another. Moreover, the close connection of the 
Papal feudatories, the kings of I^aples of the house of An- 
jou, with their liege, gave him a strong ally. And finally, 
the Pontiffs in Avignon played anew the part of their 
predecessors who, in the contest with the Hohenstaufen 
emperors, had taken the attitude of friends and protectors 
of the Italian nmnicipalities in their pursuit of freedom. 
By means of Cardinal Albornoz, an able Spaniard, the Popes 
succeeded, while personally absent from Italy, in recovering 
and reuniting nearly the whole of their former cities and 
territories. They even succeeded in using for their own 
ends the eloquence and popularity of Cola di Pienzi. At a 



* Avignon was afterwards, in 1348, bought by the Papal See of Joanna, 
Queen of Naples and Countess of Provence. Venaissin was presented to 
the Pope in 1273, by King Philip III. 
4* 



82 THE TEIMPORAL KINGDOM OF THE POPES. 

time when Home was filled with, anarchy and violence, 
through the agency of the nobles who sallied from the 
strongholds which they had bnilt in the city, to engage in 
bloody fights in the streets, this political and religions en- 
thusiast became the author of a successful revolution, in 
which he installed himself as tribune, compelling the nobles 
to smTender their fortresses, and restoring order. Unhap- 
pily he quickly betrayed an unbalanced character, and by 
his costly pomps and shows disgusted the people, caused the 
Pope to declare against him, and was at length driven from 
Rome. Arrested a few years later by the Emperor Charles 
rV., he was sent to Avignon, and having been detained for 
a while in custody by the Pope, he returned to Rome in 
company with Albornoz, and materially aided the latter in 
conciliating the popular favor. But his vanity and self-in- 
dulgence excited renewed hostility against him, and in 1354 
he was assassinated. 

Hardly were the Popes back again in Rome, before they 
threw away the great prize which the energy and sagacity 
of Albornoz had won for them. They set about the busi- 
ness of depriving the cities in their domain of the privi- 
leges which had been wisely conceded to them by Albor- 
noz ; and, in order to crush republicanism more effectually, 
they even attempted to rob the Tuscan towns of their inde- 
pendence. The result was that the Papal subjects anew 
broke off their allegiance, which - Albornoz had regained 
with so much painstaking. If the Popes retained, and even 
recovered, their temporal power during their residence in 
Avignon, the effect of the great schism, lasting from 1378 
to the Council of Constance in 1117, a period in which two 
and sometimes three rival Popes were struggling to sup- 
plant each other, was quite the opposite. In the cities of 
the Papal kingdom the old dynasties revived and new ones 
sprang up ; towns and territories were ceded to nobles in 
"fief, so that the exhausted Papal treasury might have a new 
source of income ; to the old republics within their domain, 



THE TEMPORAL KINGDOM OF THE POPES. 83 

as Rome, Perugia, and Bologna, the Popes found it neces- 
sary to concede a degree of republican freedom, that almost 
amounted to independence, and like privileges were even 
granted to cities that had never before enjoyed them. In 
short, the Papal kingdom was dissolved and broken up in 
this eventful period which was equally detrimental to the 
temporal and spiritual dominion of the Roman bishops. 
The steps by which subsequent Pontiffs, beginning with 
Nicholas Y., who became Pope in 1447, regained by de- 
grees, through patient and prudent efforts, the inheritance 
which the folly of their predecessors had lost, we cannot at- 
tempt, in this brief sketch, to relate. 



Y. 

As we approach the beginning of the sixteenth century, 
we come to a period of moral degradation in the papacy, 
having no parallel save in the tenth century, when harlots 
disposed of the sacred office. "The governments of Eu- 
rope," says Ranke, " were stripping the Pope of a portion 
of his privileges, while at the same time the latter began 
to occupy himself exclusively with worldly concerns." * To 
found an Italian kingdom for his own family, to carve out 
principalities for his own relations, was the darling object of 
his ambition. This shameful era may be said to begin with 
Sixtus lY., Pope from 1471 to 1484. He conceived the 
plan of founding a State in Romagna for his nephew, or, 
if we may believe Macchiavelli's assertion, his natural son, 
Jerome Riario. Opposed in his schemes by Florence, he 
entered into the foul conspiracy for assassinating Lorenzo 
and Julian de Medici, which was concocted by the Pazzi. 
In the midst of the solemn service of the Mass, at the sig- 
nal given by the elevation of the host, a fierce attack was 

* Ranke, History of the Popes of Borne during the Sixteenth and 
Seventeenth Centuries, vol. i., p. 45. 



84 THE TEMPORAL EINGDOM OF THE POPES. 

made upon them ; but while Julian fell, Lorenzo escaped. 
The speedy execution, without the forms of a trial before an 
ecclesiastical tribunal, of the priests who had been engaged 
in this murderous assault, afforded the Pope a pretext for 
venting his chagrin at its failure by launching his spiritual 
thunders against Florence and its ruler. He joined Ferdi- 
nand of Kaples in making war upon Lorenzo, whose con- 
summate boldness and skill in drawing off Ferdinand from 
the alliance saved him .from ruin. I^ext, Jerome coveted 
Ferrara, held in fief by the house of Este ; and the Pope, in 
alliance with Yenice, turned his arms in that direction ; but 
the same Pope, seeing that they were to gain nothing, de- 
serted Venice and excommunicated her. Vexation at his 
inability to subdue this republic hastened his death. Lmo- 
cent Vin. " sought with a still more profligate idleness to 
exalt and enrich his seven illegitimate children : " and for 
this end carried on two wars against Ferdinand, King of 
E'aples. But the crimes of Sixtus and of Innocent, shock- 
ing as they were, were less than the crimes committed by 
the most flagitious of all the Pontiffs, Alexander VI. To 
give riches and cro^vns to his five illegitimate children, and 
especially to his favorite son, Csesar Borgia, he exerted all 
his energies. His court afforded a spectacle of luxury and 
unbounded sensuality. Alexander sided with [N'aples against 
the invader, Charles VIH. of France, and then, for a price, 
deserted his ally. In 1495, he joined the emperor and the 
King of Spain, in order to drive the French out of Italy. 
E'ot getting enough from Naples to satisfy him, he went 
over to Louis XII. of France, granting to Louis a divorce 
from his wife, and receiving, among other benefits, armed 
assistance for Csesar Borgia, who made war upon the princi- 
pal vassals of the church and carved for himself a domin- 
ion out of their territories. To advance the interests of 
this monster of cruelty and perfidy, Alexander was ready to 
throw away even the show of truth and decency. At length 
the poison which the Pope had mixed for a rich cardinal 



THE TEMPORAL KINGDOM OF THE POPES. 85 

whom he wanted to rob, he drank himself by mistake, and 
died on the 18th of August, 1503. 

Julius II. differed from his immediate predecessors in be- 
ing free fi'om their personal vices and in not aiming to ag- 
grandize his o\\Ti relations. liis aim was to build up and ex- 
tend the States of the Church. In this he attained to great 
success. He satisfied his family by obtaining for them, by 
peaceful means, the patrimony of Urbino. He expelled 
Csesar Borgia from his dominion and seized upon it. He 
brought Perugia and Bologna under the direct rule of the 
Papal See. Unable to induce the Venetians to retire from 
the territories of the Holy See on the coast, he organized 
the league of Cambray, and compelled them to surrender 
this portion of the dominions of the church. He gained 
possession of Parma, Piacenza, and Peggio, and of all the 
region lying between Piacenza and Terracina. He had es- 
tablished his sway over all the territories of the church and 
consolidated them into a kingdom. He only failed in a sec- 
ond great end which he had set before him — that of expell- 
ing the foreigners, or, as he expressed it, of *' driving out 
the barbarians " from Italy. In truth, in reaching the ob- 
ject of his ambition, he had been obliged to bring in for- 
eign intervention, and had done his part in paving the way 
for the train of evils which were destined to flow from it. 

In their efforts to preserve the fair inheritance which 
Julius II. had left to them, his successors were obliged to in- 
volve themselves in the intrigues and conflicts of European 
politics, and especially in the long contest between France 
and Austria for power and predominance in Italy. In par- 
ticular did the acquisitions made by Julius II. help forward 
the Protestant Reformation. The Papal control over Par- 
ma, Piacenza, and other Lombard towns, Charles Y. re- 
garded as a usurpation ; and, at the critical time of the 
Reformation, he was not disposed to strengthen his antago- 
nist by stifling the Lutheran movement. In like manner, 
the Popes were willing to use that movement as an element 



86 THE TEMPORAL KINGDOM OF THE POPES. 

of discord and weakness in the empire of Charles. At the 
moment when Charles was gaining his great success against 
the Reformers, in the Smalcaldic war, about the time of the 
battle of Mlihlberg, Pope Paul III. sent a message to the 
King of France '' to support those who were not yet beaten," 
that is, to aid the Protestants. Francis, the Pope, and the 
Protestants were found, on occasions of vital importance, in 
virtual alliance with each other. The Protestant cause was 
saved by the mutual jealousies and the selfish rivalship of 
its enemies. The separation of England from the Catholic 
Church was occasioned by the refusal of Clement YII. to 
grant the application of Henry YIH. for a divorce — a re- 
fusal that was due to the political relations then subsisting 
between the Pope and the emperor. 

To Julius n. belongs the distinction of founding the 
Papal kingdom as it has continued down to a recent day. It 
was not, however, until 1598 that Ferrara was brought un- 
der the immediate sovereignty of the Holy See, and not un- 
til 1649 that the Dukedom of IJrbino was in like manner 
absorbed into the Papal kingdom. By the treaties of 1815, 
Austria gained a small strip of Papal territory situated on 
the left bank of the Po. 

YI. 

The Papal dominion in Italy felt the shock of the French 
Pevolution, which caused all thrones to tremble. In 1790 
the French iS'ational Assembly incorporated with the French 
kingdom the Papal counties of Avignon and Yenaissin. As 
the Pope joined in the war against France, I^apoleon, in 
1797, conquered his states and obliged him, in the peace of 
Tolentino, to renounce Avignon and Yenaissin forever, to 
give up the Legations of Ferrara, Bologna, and Pomagna to 
the new Cisalpine Republic, to surrender the finest works 
of art to be transported to Paris, and to pay the costs of the 
war. The republican feeling spread as far as Rome, and in 



THE TElVn^ORAL KINGDOM OF THE POPES. 87 

1798, a Roman Eepublic was proclaimed by the insurgent 
people. Pius YI. was carried from Rome as a prisoner and 
died in Yalence, in France, in 1799. During the absence 
of Bonaparte in Egypt, Italy was overrun by Suwarrow at 
the head of the allied army. It is needless to recount here 
the particulars of the prolonged conflict of Pius. YII. with 
Napoleon. In 1809, a decree of the French emperor united 
the Papal States with his empire. In 1814, after the allies 
had entered France, the Pope returned to Pome. The re- 
actionary policy at once began to prevail, and the French 
system of law and administration, which had proved so 
beneficial to the Papal States, was overthrown. At the 
Congress of Yienna, the Pope entered a protest against the 
cession of the little tract of territory on the Po to Austria, 
as well as against the retention by France of Avignon and 
Yenaissin, which, as we have said, had been formally given 
up. The maladministration of the Papal government, espe- 
cially the restoration of the confiscated ecclesiastical property, 
brought the finances of the kingdom into irretrievable ruin. 
Up to the accession of Pius IX., there was no sign of any 
disposition to vary from a blind, stubborn, and liberty-hat- 
ing conservatism. Efforts at rebellion — as those at Bologna 
in 1831 — had been suppressed by Austrian soldiery. The 
government of Gregory XYI. obstinately set itself against 
every enterprise looking towards political and social improve- . 
ment, and evinced its hatred of freedom by incarcerating 
thousands of political offenders. 

The accession of Pius IX., in 1846, to the Papal chair, 
inspired the warmest hopes. He set free six thousand po- 
litical prisoners. He earnestly set about the work of im- 
proving and liberalizing the system of government. He 
was hailed as the chief of the liberal party in Italy. The 
Revolution in France, in 1848, was followed by the grant, 
from the Pope, of a Constitution embracing liberal provi- 
sions. The insurrection in Lombardy, against the Austrian 
rule, led to the breach between the" Pope, who refused to 



88 THE TEMPOKAL KINGDOM OF THE POPES. 

engage in a war with, the Austrians, and the radical party ; 
and this party gaining the ascendancy, after the assassination 
of Eossi, in 184:8, the Pope was obliged to fly from Rome. 
The Roman Republic was overthrown by French troops, and 
the Pope, nnder their protection, returned to Rome, in 1850. 
Of late, 'the progress of the new kingdom of Italy has 
given promise that the yearning for Italian unity will be real- 
ized, and that the temporal rule of the Pope must give way 
to the demand of a nation. Upon the evacuation of the 
States of the Church by the Austrian garrisons, immediately 
after the victories of the French and Sardinians at Magenta 
and Melagnano, in the summer of 1859, several of those states 
at once revolted from the Pope and proclaimed Victor Imman- 
uel king. The Papal government succeeded in reconquer- 
ing them, with the exception of Bologna, Ferrara, Ravenna, 
and Forli. After the peace of Yillafranca, the French em- 
peror denied the application of the Pope for aid in recover- 
ing these legations ; and their formal annexation to the Sar- 
dinian kingdom took place in 1860. The attempt of Lamori- 
ciere, the French general in the service of the Pope, to re- 
cover them, not only failed, but led to the further annexa- 
tion of Umbria and the Marches of Ancona to the Italian 
kingdom. Thus there was left to the Pope only the comar- 
ca of Rome, Civita Yecchia, YeHetri, and Frosinone, hav- 
ing an aggregate population of about half a million of in- 
habitants. The Italian statesmen probably expect that the 
retirement of the French garrison from Rome will be at- 
tended with the same result that followed the evacuation of 
the legations by the Austrians in 1859. The people will 
rise, overturn the government, and invite Victor Immanuel 
to incorporate them among his subjects and establish his 
court at Rome. 

After this historical survey we are prepared to consider 
what have been the character and effect of the Pope's secu- 
lar rule. And first, in respect to the States of the Church 



THE TEMPOEAL KINGDOM OF THE POPES. »y 

themselves, there can be no doubt that the government of 
the Popes has been, on the whole, an exceedingly bad govern- 
ment. On this point there can be no serious question among 
enlightened men. The exceptional periods, when there has 
been an improved administration, have been short and far 
between. Since the French Revolution, the great powers, 
including such as are most loyal to the Catholic Church and 
to the Supreme Bishop, have repeatedly used their endeav- 
ors to procure reforms. But they have been met by a stiif 
refusal to depart from the old system. It is supposed that 
the election of Pius IX. vv^as owing to the conviction that the 
gross misgovernment at Rome could not long continue ; and 
that his liberal measures at the outset of his reign were due 
to this feeling. JSTow the vices of the Papal rule are not ac- 
cidental ; but they appear to belong inseparably to a govern- 
ment of priests like that which the Pope has been so long 
endeavoring to prop up by foreign bayonets. The settled 
disaffection and hostility of his subjects are well justified by 
the inherent and ineradicable vices of a priestly administra- 
tion. 

The effect of the Popes' temporal sovereignty on Italy has 
likewise been in the highest degree disastrous. The main- 
tenance of their tenjporal power has led them to bring in 
foreign domination, the great curse of the peninsula, and to 
keep Italy divided. Macchiavelli, who inscribed his History 
of Florence to Clement YIL, says that '^ all the wars which 
were brought upon Italy by the barbarians " — that is, foreign- 
ers — " were caused for the most part by the Popes, and all 
the barbarians who overrun Italy were invited in by them. 
This has kept Italy in a state of disunion and weakness." 
At this moment, the Pope's temporal dominion is the one 
great hindrance to the realization of Italian unity. 

When we inquire as to the influence of his temporal rule 
upon his character and influence as a spiritual ruler, it is an 
open question whether his position as secular prince did not, 
in the middle ages, protect and strengthen the papacy in 



90 THE TEMPOEAL KINGDOM OF THE POPES. 

general. If it did, and if the papacy in these times is ac- 
knowledged to have been, on the whole, a beneficial institu- 
tion, being a counterpoise to the spirit of irreligion and law- 
less barbarism, then w^e must admit that the temporal power 
was relatively a good thing. However this question may be 
answered, it is clear that the secular power of the Pope has 
had a corrupting and pernicious influence upon the character 
of his spiritual administration. Bellarmine, and other emi- 
nent Catholic theologians and casuists, have explained the 
consistency between the spiritual office of the Pope, and his 
position as a secular prince ; and have held that, in entire con- 
sistency with religion, a foreign prince or state may wage 
war with him in his character as an earthly sovereign. But 
as a matter of fact, as is well known, the Pontiffs ha\'e never 
refrained from using the spiritual weapons in their hands, 
as the excommunication and the interdict, for the further- 
ance of the temporal interest. They have turned the awful 
powers of discipline, which are attributed to them, for the 
furtherance of their political schemes. The inevitable effect 
must be, and has been, to degrade the spiritual function, and 
rob it of no small portion of the reverence which it might 
otherwise excite and maintain. Of the influence of the secu- 
lar dominion exercised by the Poj)es, and of the court which 
it creates, on their own personal character, history is an out- 
spoken witness. The covetousness, the ambition, the lux- 
ury, the open and shameless licentiousness, the atrocious 
crimes, which are chargeable on too many of the Popes — 
offenses which have moved the indignation of Catholic his- 
torians like Baronius, and poets like Petrarch and Dante — 
have commonly grown out of the temptations incident to the 
temporal sovereignty. By the occupations and pleasures 
which cluster about it. Pontiffs who are by no means to be 
counted among the worst, have been drawn aside from the 
proper work and character of Christian bishops. Father 
Paul, after praising Leo X. for his erudition, his humanity, 
his liberality, his love of letters and arts, adds, with fine sa- 



THE TEMPORAL KINGDOM OF THE POPES. 91 

tire, that ^' lie would have been a perfect Pope, if with these 
qualities, he had united some knowledge of the affairs of re- 
ligion, and a somewhat greater inclination to piety, for neither 
of which he manifested much concern."^ Dante's indig- 
nant protest against the temporal power of the Roman 
bishops, is familiar f : — 

" Laws indeed there are 
But who is he observes them ? None ; not he, 
Who goes before, the shepherd of the flock, 
Who chews the cud, but does not cleave the hoof,:}: 
Therefore the multitude, who see their guide 
Strike at the very good they covet most, 
Feed there, and look no further. Thus the cause 
Is not corrupted nature in yourselves, 
But ill- conducting, that hath turn'd the world 
To evil. Eome, that turn'd it unto good. 
Was wont to boast two suns, § whose several beams 
Cast light on either way, the world's and God's. 
Once since hath quench'd the other ; and sword 
Is grafted on the crook ; and so conjoin'd. 
Each must perforce decline to worse, unawed 
By fear of other," 

But can the temporal power be given up, and the spiritual 
power be left intact ? The affirmative is declared by some 
Catholic writers and statesmen. It is proposed that the 
Pope should surrender his temporal authority, but continue 
at Rome the exercise of his spiritual functions, receiving an 
abundant revenue, together with an ample income for each 
of the cardinals. On the other hand, the Pope and his 
party stoutly contend that the temporal sovereignty is essen- 
tial to the full exertion of his spiritual functions, and there- 
fore cannot be given up. It must be allowed that cogent 

* Istoria del Condi. Trident, lib. i. , p. 5. 
f Purgntorio, xvi., 1. 100 — 115 (Gary's translation). 
:j: The allusion is to an unclean beast in the Levitical Law. (See Levit. 
xi. 4.) 

§ The emperor and the Bishop of Rome. 



92 THE te:mpokal ejngdom of the popes. 

arguments may be broiiglit forward on this side of the ques- 
tion. In the first place, as the Pope declares in his recent 
" Allocution," if he is not to be a ruler, he must be a sub- 
ject of one of the Catholic powers ; and, if a subject, he is 
constantly exposed to the suspicion of being warped or man- 
aged, in his spiiitual government, by the power to which he 
is thus, in a civil relation, subordinate. The experience of 
the papacy at Avignon, and the immense loss of prestige 
and influence consequent on the relation of the Popes, at 
that time, to the French kings, is one of the facts which 
lend a strong support to this plea put forth by Pius IX. 
On the contrary, the force of his argument seems to be neu- 
tralized by the consideration that, in the present state of the 
world, the Pope, as a temporal ruler, is incapable of sustaiu- 
ing himself, and is obliged to lean for support on a foreign 
power. If it be said that the sm-render of his States is to 
compromise his independence, the reply is that his inde- 
pendence is lost already. There is still more weight in an 
additional argument, which is also touched upon by the 
Pope in the late "Allocution," that on becoming a subject 
he would at once be involved lq a conflict of duties, or 
would be fettered in the promulgation of doctrine and the 
administration of discipline. The great question of mar- 
riage, which is now a prominent subject of contention be- 
tween the Pope and the Italian king, affords a fan* illustra- 
tion. In the kingdom of Italy, and wherever the French 
law is in vogue, marriage by the civil contract alone is valid. 
To this law and practice the Pope is, of course, vehemently 
hostile. Marriage is a sacrament of the church, and the 
sanction of the priest is held to be indispensable. The con- 
trol which this doctrine gives to the priesthood is one of 
their greatest prerogatives, and no wonder that it is prized 
and defended to the last. E'ow, suppose the Pope to become 
a subject of Victor Immanuel. It is easy to see that his 
freedom to fulminate anathemas against the authors of the 
statute which abolishes this high prerogative, and against 



THE TEMPOEAL KINGDOM OF THE POPES. 93 

sucli as venture to take shelter under the law of the land, 
might be inconveniently restricted ; and that conflict be- 
tween the secular and ecclesiastical rulers would almost in- 
evitably spring up. And this is only one of the subjects on 
which variance and strife might easily arise. On a review 
of the whole question, we are inclined to agree with the 
Pope and. his party in the opinion that the loss of the tem- 
poral power carries with it a partial loss of the spiritu.al. If 
the spiritual power could survive the surrender of the tem- 
poral, in undiminished vigor, the former might be enhanced, 
and the Catholic Church strengthened by the purifying in- 
fluence flowing from the change. The Pope would stand 
forth in the simple character of Supreme Bishop, free from 
the entanglements of secular rule. But, as we have just in- 
timated, it is doubtful whether his freedom, as a spiritual 
prince, would not be seriously impaired by the loss of his 
earthly kingdom. 

Will the Pope be dethroned ? If we looked solely at the 
past, we should give a negative answer to this question. We 
should say that if he be driven from his kingdom, he will re- 
gain it. Many times have the Popes been expelled from 
Rome. They have seen their dominions pass into other 
hands, and have wandered forth as fugitives and exiles. 
Often have they witnessed emergencies which, in outward 
appearance, were more threatening than the peril in which 
they are just now involved. The bark of St. Peter, to bor- 
row their own favorite simile, has frequently been tossed by 
the tempest, but has never been submerged. It has floated 
in safety in the midst of the rude blast, and at length the bil- 
lows have been composed to rest. But times have changed. 
There is, even in the Poman Catholic part of Christendom, 
a decline of faith in the Papal pretensions. The main point 
is that the papacy no longer enjoys in Europe the popular 
sympathy which was once its firm support. In the middle 
ages, the papacy was popular, sometimes even demagogical. 
In modern times, it has attached itself with blind, unyield- 



94 THE TEMPORAL KINGDOM OF THE POPES. 

ing tenacity to the despotic principles and organs of tlie re- 
actionary anti-repnblican party in Europe. It vainly strug- 
gles to stem tlie tide of political sentiment which, notwith- 
standing occasional fluctuations, has been steadily rising since 
the commencement of the present century. The prospect, 
therefore, is that the Pope will be forced to yield up what 
remains to him of his Italian kingdom. If he could perma- 
nently change his residence, the problem would admit of 
another solution. He might become the master of some 
other province, or establish himself on some island of the 
Mediterranean. But it is only as bishop of the Roman 
Church that he can pretend to episcopal supremacy. For- 
saking that church by his own voluntary act, could he lon- 
ger claim the prerogatives of Peter ? If a theory could be 
devised for escaping from this difficulty, still the abandon- 
ment of Eome for a long period would bring upon him a 
great loss of consideration."^ The peculiar glory that lin- 
gers over the eternal city, and over the papacy as identified 
with it, would be lost. 

The separation of Italy or of France, or of both, from the 
Papal See, would be an event which would be hailed by 
Protestants with joy. Such an event would open to the se- 
ceding kingdoms the possibility of religious reforms which 
are now precluded. The policy of toleration is now too firm- 
ly established, to render it possible, in either of the countries 
just mentioned, for Protestantism to be suppressed by the 
tyranny of an establishment, in case they were to break off 
their connection with the Poman Church. Unhappily, in 

* The Catholic theologians hold that the Bishop of Rome may reside 
away from that city, if he chooses. As long as he is Bishop of Rome, he 
is Supreme Pontiff. SaysPerrone : — " Fieri potest, ut summus pontif ex 
resideat Viennas, Mediolani, Berolini, aut Petropoli, nunquam vero potest 
fieri, ut simplex episcopus Viennensis aut Petropolitanua sit summus 
Pontifex ; ubicunque idcirco resideat, semper erit pontifex maximus, 
ut possit dici ac verS sit in primatu Petri successor." Perrone, t. ii., 
§ 604. (Quoted in Hase, Handhuch der Protestantischen Polemik, etc., p. 
242, n.) 



TUE TEMPORAL KINGDOM OF THE POPES. 95 

France, the ultramontane party is now in tlie ascendant. 
The old principles of Galilean freedom, for which Bossuet, 
and a body of great men before and after him, have con- 
tended, have lost ground and find but few advocates. In 
Italy, the prospect is more hopeful. It is not impossible 
that the prolonged and irritating conflict there between Pope 
and king will ultimately lead to an open renunciation of the 
ecclesiastical, as well as civil, pretensions of the Pope. Since 
the modern nations of Europe emerged into a distinct exis- 
tence, the feeling of national rights and of national inde- 
pendence, as opposed to foreign ecclesiastical control, has 
been steadily growing. A regard for the interest of the na- 
tion has outweighed the influence of religious affinities. 
Since Philip the Fair summoned together the estates of his 
realm to aid him in his opposition to the tyrannical meas- 
ures of Boniface YIIL, the nation has generally been the 
uppermost thought, as compared with the church, in the 
policy of European rulers. The hostility of France to the 
Austrian house of Hapsburg brought the former to the as- 
sistance of the Protestant cause in the thirty years' war. 
Now we find Prussia and Italy in alliance against the same 
Catholic empire. The papacy is not so strong that it can 
afford to set itself against the national feeling and real wel- 
fare of any Catholic people. 

At the same time we have little confidence in the perma- 
nence of any triumph that is achieved over the Papal sys- 
tem, unless that triumph results from the power of enlight- 
ened religious convictions. In the last century, in Europe, 
the papacy — we speak of it as a system of spiritual rule — 
was at a low ebb. It seemed as if there were none so poor 
as to do it reverence. The Emperor Joseph II. of Austria 
introduced into his dominions reforms that fell little short 
of an utter renunciation of Papal control. Everywhere the 
bonds of hierarchical rule were loosened. But the motive 
underlying these changes was, to a large extent, religious in- 
differentism. When religion revived, religious feeling flowed 



96 THE TEMPORAL KINGDOM OF THE POPES. 

in the old cliannel. In France, the Cathohc Church is 
stronger than it was fifty years ago. It is on a believing, 
and not on a free-thinking, Protestantism that we mnst de- 
pend for a success that is to be enduring. It is requisite that 
deep and enlightened conyictions of Christian truth, and a 
true love of the Gospel as understood by Protestants, should 
spread among the people of Catholic countries. The church 
is founded not on Peter as an individual, but on Peter as a 
warm and sincere confessor of the faith that Jesus is the 
Son of God and Saviour of the world. With the progress 
of this faith, unencumbered by the traditions of men, the 
decline and fall of the Papal system are linked. Political 
changes may be valuable auxiliaries, but it is easy to overes- 
timate their importance. 

Most Protestant Christians sympathize with the progress 
of the Italian kingdom, and hope to see the Pope lose his 
temporal power. This is not true of all, however ; and 
among the dissenters from the popular view is the illustrious 
scholar and statesman, Guizot. The publication, during the 
present year, of the fourth edition of his remarks on The 
Christian Church and Christian Society in 1861, indicates 
that his opinions on this question since that time have not 
changed. At the foundation of his interesting discussion is 
the proposition that every blow struck at one of the great 
churches is a blow struck at all and at Christianity itself. 
The Poman Catholic and the Protestant have adversaries in 
common, who are far more distant from both than the Cath- 
olic and Protestant are from one another. The Catholic and 
Protestant profess the same Christian faith, important as 
the points of disagi^eement are between them. The adver- 
saries attack this faith, and their attacks at the present day 
are mischievous and formidable. It is, therefore, suicidal, as 
well as wrong, for Protestants to join hands with indifferent- 
ism and irreligion, for the sake of weakenmg their ancient 
theological antagonist. Guizot proceeds to argue that the 
temporal kingdom of the Pope cannot be wrested from him 



THE TEMPOEAL KINGDOM OF THE POPES. 97 

without a violation of international law and public morality. 
He sees in the authority which it has become fashionable in 
France to concede to " universal suffrage " the rising of a new 
despotism which is held to be stronger than the obligations 
of treaties and the settled principles of international right. 
Moreover, the attack on the Pope's temporal kingdom he 
considers an infringement of religious liberty. The tem- 
poral power is a condition of the exercise of the spiritual. 
It is the guaranty of the independence of the Papal office. 
The great body of Catholics so regard it. The temporal 
power grew up in connection with the spiritual, as a part 
and a fruit of the latter. Besides, he thinks that the policy 
of the Italian kingdom is principally dictated by political 
ambition. If the Pope be driven from Pome, Guizot thinks 
that this event w^ill not give more than a momentary success 
to the Italian movement. The Poman Catholic population, 
the world over, will be roused to a sense of the injury done 
to their chief and thus indirectly to themselves. The con- 
sequence will be that widespread and increasing agitation 
will lead to positive measures for the restoration of the 
Pope to his rightful throne. 

Guizot does not confine himself to an expression of his 
reasons for not approving the Sardinian movement. He in- 
dicates what he believes to be the real need of Italy, and the 
way in which it should be met. Italy needs independence 
and liberty — independence of foreign control and liberty 
within. Both of these ends he holds it possible to secure 
by peaceful means, apart from all revolutionary measures. 
The abridgment of liberty in the Italian States he attributes, 
to a considerable extent, to the revolutionary ferment. But 
Italian unity, in the sense in which the phrase is taken gen- 
erally, he believes to be at once unnecessary and impractica- 
ble, liis plan would be to establish a confederation, em- 
bracing all the States of the Peninsula as they existed prior 
to the revolutions which have so enlarged the borders of the 
Sardinian kingdom. In a confederacy of this kind, he con- 
5 



yy THE TEMPORAL EINGDOM OF THE POPES. 

ceives that all the unity that is desirable or attainable could 
be realized. To give strength to the various parts com- 
posing such a body, he would wish that they should be near- 
ly equal to one another, no one State being much beyond 
any of the rest in power and resources. It is evident that 
Guizot has little faith in political changes which are due to 
revolutionary agencies. He uses strong language when con- 
denniing the action of the Italian Government in confiscat- 
ing ecclesiastical property, and in reference generally to 
their treatment of the Catholic Church. Yet he does not 
omit to express satisfaction that he is a Protestant, and re- 
gret that the authorities of the Eoman Catholic Church do 
not see the advantage, as well as duty, of coming out in fa- 
vor of f uU religious toleration. 

We must confess ourselves not convinced by this reason- 
ing. The fact is obvious that the Papal civil administration 
is not only distasteful to the subjects of it, but is extremely 
bad — inherently bad. It is a fact equally obvious that the 
condition of Italy, partly in consequence of the Papal king- 
dom, has been deplorable. The discontent of the people is 
owing to misgovernment. So we cannot but think that their 
desire to become a nation is legitimate and laudable. J^or 
does Guizot's scheme of a confederation, even were it within 
reach, seem to promise good. If it is to be united by no bond 
stronger than the bands which held the Greek states togeth- 
er, or which lately connected the members of the Germanic 
body, it would prove to be a rope of sand. If, on the con- 
trary, it were a bond like that of the American Union, Italy 
would be, to all intents and purposes, a single nation, and that 
member of the nation over which the Pope presides would 
inevitably prove to be refractory and unmanageable. The 
Pope, if he were to belong to such a confederacy, would be 
bound to abide by its policy in respect to foreign nations, not 
to speak of domestic affairs, and would be as far from a situ- 
.ation of independence as it is claimed he would be were he 
a subject of the Italian king. 



THE TEMPORAL KINGDOM OF THE POPES. 99 

Our conclusion is that the "logic of events" is hurrying 
the Pope to the coerced surrender of his temporal power, 
and that a portion of his spiritual power must eventually go 
with it. Whether this great change will take place speedily, 
and in consequence of the progress of the new Italian king- 
dom, it is impossible to say. The effect of an exile of the 
Pope from Pome, growing out of a refusal on his part to 
acquiesce in the absorption of his territory in the new king- 
dom, may be such as Guizot describes. Disturbances may 
arise which will lead, as when the late Poman Pepublic was 
overthrown, to the regaining of his throne. Even when 
Victor Immanuel establishes himself at Pome, it will be too 
early to say that the Pope's temporal power is gone forever. 
So unsettled is the political condition of all Europe, that a 
confident judgment on this point would be premature. 

[At the beginning of the Franco- German war, l^apoleon 
m. withdrew the French troops from Italy. Shortly after, 
on the 20th of September, 1870, Yictor Emanuel took pos- 
session of Pome. The relations of the Pope to the Italian 
government were defined in the law of the Papal guaran- 
tees, which w^as enacted on the 13th of May, 1871. By this 
law it was provided that the person of the Pope should be 
sacred and inviolable ; that attacks upon his person should 
be punished in the same manner as like offences against the 
king ; that he should have the honors of a sovereign, and 
all the distinctions which Catholic monarchs had heretofore 
accorded to him ; that 3,225,000 lire should be annually 
granted him ; that the Vatican and Lateran palaces, and 
the Castel Gandolfo, with their appurtenances, should be 
given up to him to use, and that they should be inalienable, 
and with all their contents — libraries, museums, and the 
like — should be exempt from taxation ; likewise that no gov- 
ernment officials should enter these places, on official busi- 
ness, without the Pope's permission ; that this rule should 
also hold good of places where conclaves and councils are 



100 THE TEMPORAL KINGDOM OF THE POPES. 

assembled ; that the Pope's correspondence slionld be free, 
and that he should have his own postal department and tele- 
graph ; that all ecclesiastical institutions in Rome, and in the 
suburban dioceses should be under his exclusive authority ; 
but that no aid should be rendered by the secular power in 
the execution of ecclesiastical sentences. If these should be at 
variance with the law of the state, they would be null and void. 
These liberal concessions went as far as it was practicable 
to go without constituting the papacy an iinperium in im- 
jperio. Pius IX., in repeated protests, repudiated this law, 
and he refused to receive the grant of money which it of- 
fered him, or to yield to the enactment anything but a pas- 
sive submission. Thus, in an encycKcal to all patriarchs, 
archbishops, etc., on the 15th of May, 1871, he declared that 
he could not surrender his rights, " which are the rights of 
God and of the Apostolic See," with which the Popes had 
been invested, in the providence of God, for eleven hun- 
dred years. He asserted the impossibility that a Pope of 
Kome could be independent in his office, as long as he is 
subject to a temporal sovereign who might be an infidel or a 
heretic, or might be at war with other princes. The act of 
guarantees of 1870 had left the ecclesiastical establishments 
in Rome and its dioceses under the exclusive control of the 
Pope. By a law passed on the 19tli of July, 1873, the laws 
in virtue of which such institutions in all the other parts of 
the Italian kingdom had been obliged to give up their im- 
movable property to the government, and to submit to the 
regulations imposed by the civil authority, were made ap- 
plicable to the province of Rome. Among the qualifications, 
however, which were attached to the new enactment was 
the important provision appropriating to the Pope 400,000 
fi'ancs annually for the support of the generals of the re- 
ligious orders.^] 

* The various documents referred to above may be found in Von 
Kremer-Auenrode u. Hirsch, Bos StaatsarcMv^ I. Supplementband zu b. 
xxiii., xxiv. , Leipzig, 1877. 



COUNCILS OF CONSTANCE AND THE VATICAN. 101 



THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE AND THE COUN- 
CIL OF THE VATICAN.* 

The Council of Constance, whicli was in session during 
the interval between the years 1414 and 1418, was the most 
brilliant and imposing of the ecclesiastical assemblies of the 
middle ages. If the number of bishops present was not so 
large as at some of the other great synods of the church, 
this difference was more than made up by the multitude of 
inferior clergy, of doctors and of jurists, and by the unex- 
ampled array of sovereigns and nobles. Pope and emperor 
were both present, each with a numerous and dazzling reti- 
nue of officers and attendants. It has been pronoimced the 
first example of a congress of princes in modern times, since 
there was hardly a kingdom or principality of the catho- 
lic world, however small or remote, that was not represented 
by princes or other deputies. A throng of not less than fifty 
thousand people, drawn by official obligation, curiosity, the 
love of gain or of pleasure, flowed into the city of Constance, 
to witness the doings of the council. It has been truly said 
that a detailed description of the scenes that took place with- 
in and without the assembly, would afford a complete as 
well as vivid picture of the life and manners of the time. 
The occasion that called the council together was of the 

* An article from The New Englander for April, 1870, in review of Con- 
ciliengescJiichte. Nach den Quellen bearbeitet von Dr. Carl Joseph 
Hefele, o. 6 Professor an der Universitat Tubingen. Siebenter Band. I. 
Abth. GeschicJite des Concils wn Gonfitanz. Freiburg- im Breisgau 18G9 : 
The Centenary of St. Peter and the General Council : A Pastoral Letter 
to the Clergy, &o. By Henry Edward, Archbishop of Westminster. 
London : Longmans, Green & Co, , 1867. 



102 THE COIJNCIL OF CONSTANCE AND 

gravest character. The abuses m the admmistration of the 
church had grown to be unbearable. In Bohemia there 
was a formidable religious movement that threatened to 
result in the establishment of a new and powerful sect. 
Above all, the long schism which the Council of Pisa had 
unsuccessfully tried to terminate, demanded an instant and 
effectual remedy, if Christendom and the Catholic Church 
were to be saved fi'om permanent division. It is to the 
proceedings of this sjmod, that the new instalment of He- 
fele's copious work on the History of Coimcils is devoted. 

Hefele is one of the most learned and justly esteemed of 
the Catholic theologians north of the Alps. His work is 
one to which a Protestant, to be sm^e, must often take ex- 
ception ; yet, generally speaking, it is characterized by a 
spii'it of f aii^ness, and it is not probable that it contains any 
intentional perversion of facts or sophistry in argument. 
Hefele is frequently called a liberal Catholic ; and so he is, 
in comparison with the curialists or extreme ultramontanist 
party. On the particular question whether the Pope is, by 
himself and independently of the concurrence of a council, 
infallible in matters of faith and morals, we do not find 
that, in the work before us, he distinctly avows his opinion. 
But he is far from being a Galilean, in the sense of the old 
Paris theologians, who exerted a commanding influence in 
the reforming councils of Pisa, Constance, and Basle, or 
in the sense of Bossuet, who followed in their track. In 
fact, he describes his own position as being a middle one, 
between the Galileans on the one hand and the cmialists 
on the other. The Pope is neither above nor under the 
council, but is the head of the church ; his relation being 
analogous to that of the head to the members of the human 
body. A council without the Pope is incomplete. It is not 
an oecumenical council. His assent to the dogmatic decrees 
of such an assembly is requisite, to give them infallible au- 
thority. Yet Hefele holds, as indeed does Bellarmine, that 
a council might depose a Pope for heresy, inasmuch as 



THE COUNCIL OF THE VATICAN. 103 

a heretic is ijyso facto disqualified from holding an ecclesias- 
tical office, high or low.* But in such a proceeding the 
council does not act as an oecumenical assembly. Being cut 
off from the Pope, it cannot act in this capacity. We have 
the singular doctrine, then, that an assembly of bishops, 
which is incompetent, without the Pope's assent, to issue in- 
fallible definitions of doctrine, is still competent to put the 
Pope on trial for heresy, convict him, and degrade him 
from his office. Hefele shows his conservatism, also, in 
maintaining that a Pope cannot be deposed by a council for 
personal misconduct. He may be a very bad man, but he 
cannot for this reason be deprived of his office. John 
XXIII. , Hefele expressly says, could not have been lawfully 
deposed for his crimes. It was only heresy on his part that 
could authorize such a proceeding. The doubtful validity 
of his election is brought in, as another sufficient cause for 
removing him from his station. How far this theory is 
from that of the Constance theologians and of hosts of able 
and good Catholics in past ages, we need not stop to point 
out. 

In his History, Hefele is evidently biased by the theory 
as to the relation of the Pope to the council, to which we 
have just adverted. He supports, by feeble arguments, the 
often refuted assertion that the Bishops of Pome convoked 
and presided over the early oecumenical councils, including 
that of Nicea. The proposition that the Poman bishop 
convoked the Council of Xicea, rests on no proof that has 
any weight, and is contrary to all the evidence and probabili- 
ties in the case. It was Constantino who endeavored to 
quell the disturbance raised by Arius at Alexandria. It 
was through his friend Hosius, the Spanish bishop w^hom 
he held in so high esteem, that he sent his letter which was 
designed to pacify the contending parties. Not a syllable do 

* Bellarmine, as will be explained hereafter, does not admit, for him- 
self, that a Pope will ever be left to fall from the faith. 



104 THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE AND 

we hear from the contemporarj historians and witnesses, of 
any connection of the Roman bishop with these preliminary 
events. Constantino, in all his letters and missives that re- 
late to the comicil, says nothing about the Pope. The as- 
sertion that Hosius acted for the Pope and presided in his 
name, is not only a pure conjecture, but is virtually contra- 
dicted by Eusebius, who speaks of the Roman presbyters as 
acting for the Roman prelate, and although Hosius is named 
in the same sentence, no such representative character is as- 
cribed to him. That Hosius signs the decrees of the synod 
first, is owing to the circumstance that he was a " world- 
renowned " man, as Eusebius says of him ; to his personal 
relations to the emperor ; and to the probable fact that he 
was one of the presidents, not as standing in the Pope's 
place, but through his own merits. It was he and Eusebius 
of Csesarea, as Stanley justly thinks, who sat, one on each 
side of the emperor, when that august personage took his 
place in the midst of the council. The two Roman presby- 
ters signed after Hosius — we assume that the authorities 
which report the signatures in this order are correct — out 
of respect to the Roman bishop, to whom a primacy of 
dignity would probably have been conceded, had he been 
present ; although, even in this case, it is not certain that 
the name of Hosius would not have been first inscribed. 
JSTow that the pseudo-Isidorian misconceptions and misrep- 
resentations respecting the powers conceded to the Roman 
bishops in the first centuries, have been so long exploded, 
is it too much to hope that Roman Catholic wi'iters will 
cease to strain historical evidence for the sake of establishing 
an indefensible position ? The sole authority which Hefele 
cites for the pretended presidency of the Roman prelate at 
Nicea, is Gelasius of Cyzicus, who wrote towards the end 
of the fifth centary — an utterly worthless witness, a mau- 
vais com/pilateuT, as Dupin calls him. Gelasius interpolates, 
in a quotation from Eusebius, the statement that the Pope 
presided by representatives. But his whole narrative of the 



THE COUNCIL OF THE VATICAN. 105 

council swarms with errors. He even gives an account of 
discussions on the doctrine of the Holy Ghost, although, as 
is well known, the subject was not touched at the council. 
One may see how desperate the case is, when a scholar, like 
Hefele, finding nothing in Eusebius or Socrates or Athana- 
sius, to afford any aid to his position, falls back on Gela- 
sius ! 

The two topics of most interest which are brought for- 
ward in Hefele's recent volume on the proceedings at Con- 
stance, are the decrees of the 4th and 5th Sessions, affirming 
the subordination of Pope to council, and the trial and exe- 
cutio^i of Huss. Hefele dissents, of course, from the view 
of the extreme curia lists, who deny the oecumenicity of the 
Constance council altogether. It requires, indeed, some 
hardihood even in them to take such ground, in the face of 
the distinct declaration of Martin Y., in the bull against the 
Hussites. But Hefele allows an oecumenical character 
only to those acts of the council which were done after the 
election of the Pope and with his approval (the 41st to 45th 
Sessions, inclusive), together with such other previous acts and 
decrees as were ratified by him. All the ingenuity of the 
Papal theologians has been exerted in the effort to show 
that the famous doctrines of the 4th and 5th Sessions never 
had Papal sanction. The decrees which had been agreed 
upon in the meetings of the nations, were to be read in the 
general session -(the 4th) by Zabarella, Cardinal of Florence, 
the anti-Gallican spokesman. But it was found that in his 
hands they had undergone an alteration. One of the 
changes was that in the 1st Article which declared the obli- 
gation of all, the Pope included, to obey the council, the 
words, "Reformation in head and members" — one of the 
points in regard to which the obligation to submit to the 
council was affirmed — were left out. This, Hefele states, was 
by an arrangement between Sigismund and the cardinals. 
Then the intelligence came that the Pope had fied again, 
5* 



106 THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE AND 

leaving Scliaffhausen. The council now insisted upon the 
passage of the Articles as originally conceived, and as ap- 
proved by the nations, and this took place at the 5th General 
Session, at which Zabarella and seven other cardinals were 
present. They made no protest, and the Articles were 
passed in due form. We cannot admit, therefore, the plea 
of Hefele, that on account of their secret objections or pri- 
vate declarations, supposing these to have been in opposition 
to the decrees, they were rendered invalid. In two dis- 
courses of Gerson, they were quoted before the council as 
authoritative acts, and no voice was lifted up to dispute the 
statement. They are to be regarded as the decrees of the 
council, not less than the declarations of the preceding ses- 
sion. But we do not see that Hefele materially helps his 
case, were he to succeed in showing that the proceedings of 
the 6th Session were without the assent of the cardinals. 
For the 1st Article, as read by Zabarella and passed in the 
4th Session, is all that a Galilean can ask. It read thus : 
" The Synod of Constance, regularly assembled in the Holy 
Ghost, forming a universal council and representing the 
militant church, has its authority immediately from God, 
and every one, the Pope included, is bound to obey it in 
what pertains to the faith and to the extirpation of 
schism." ^ This is enough. The superiority of the coun- 
cil to the Pope is unambiguously declared. And as to the 
omitted clause — "the reformation of the church in head 
and members " — the council practically vindicated its right 

* " Et primo declarat, quod ipsa in Spiritu Sancto, legitime coDgregata, 
generale Conciiium faciens, et Ecclesiam Catholicam miiitantem reprge- 
sentans, potestatem a Christo immediate habet, cui quilibet, cujuscun- 
que status, vel dignitatis, etiamsi papalis, existat, obedire tenetur in his, 
qua pertinent ad fidem et exstirpationem dicti schismatis, ac generalem re- 
fovmationem ecdesim Dei in capite et in membris,'''' etc. The council proceeds 
to assert that disobedience to its behests and ordinances, come from 
whatever quarter it may, even from a Pope, will subject the offender to 
condign penance, and to punishment. Van d. Hardt, iv. p. 72. Gieseler, 
III., V. 1, § 131, n. 8. 



THE COUNCIL OF THE VATICAN. 107 

on tliis point by deposing John XXIII., and by other meas- 
ures equally significant. But how about the approval of 
the Popes ? In the first place, John XXIII., before his de- 
position, declared, over and over again, that the council v^as 
"holy and could not err." Hefele himself quotes these 
declarations. To be sure, Balthasar Cossa was one of the 
most flagitious of men, although Ilefele would mitigate 
somewhat the verdict of execration that was pronounced 
upon him by his contemporaries. But he was Pope, never- 
theless, up to the time of his deposition. In the second 
place, Martin Y. sanctioned the proceedings of the council, 
in terms that cover the 4th and 5th Sessions. ]^o matter 
what reluctance he may have felt in doing this. 'No matter 
what counter expressions he may have uttered. In the 
matter of Falkenberg, who had so grievously incensed the 
Poles by his book, and whom the French, on account of the 
affinity of his doctrines with those of Jean Petit, wished 
also to condemn, the Pope declared that he maintained the 
decrees of the council as to everything which had been 
adopted in materiis fidei et conciliariter. The verdict 
against Falkenberg had been passed in the nations, but not 
in the general session. This is the sense of the term concili- 
ariter. It is not opposed to tumultuariter, as Hefele seemed 
to think, in his first volume ; but to nationaliter. l^ow the 
decrees of the 4:th and 5th Sessions were adopted conciliari- 
ter. Hefele objects, again, that they are not defide. That 
is, they are not of a dogmatic character. They were ob- 
viously so meant ; and this Hefele himself concedes.* If 
the supremacy of Pope over council ,can be made into a 
dogma, why not the reverse proposition ? If the infallibility 
of the Pope can be turned into an article of the creed, why 
not the infallibility of the council ? But look at Martin's 
bull against the Hussites. In this bull, it was provided that 
every person suspected of holding the condemned heresies 

* P. 104. 



108 THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE AND 

of Wickliffe and Hiiss, should be required by bishop or in- 
quisitor to say, among other things, whether he believes 
that " what the Holy Council of Constance, representing the 
universal church, has sanctioned and sanctions in favorem 
fidei et salutem animarum is binding on all Christian be- 
lievers, and also that what the synod has condemned as 
contrary to the faith, must be held by all to deserve reproba- 
tion." Hefele can do nothing with this passage except to 
construe the terms, in f amor em fidei et salutem animarum^ 
as restrictive ! As if Martin, in a bull for the suppression 
of heresy, which aimed to accomplish its end by bringing 
the authority of the council to bear heavily upon offenders, 
would couple with the assertion of the oecumenical character 
of the synod, a partial denial of the same ! As if he would 
suggest to persons heretically inclined, that decrees not 
judged to be in favorem fidei and for the health of souls, 
need not be respected ! But Hefele is compehed to resort 
to the hypothesis that Martin Y. purposely used ambiguous 
language, such as might be understood by each party as 
favoring its cause against the other. That is, he intended 
that the supporters of the council should understand him to 
approve of their doctrine, at the same time that he left a 
loop-hole out of which he could escape ! We think more 
charitably, in this instance, of Martin Y., and we interpret 
him as giving a full and unqualified assent to the decrees 
and declarations, passed in general session, of the Council of 
Constance. In the thhd place, when the Council of Basle 
had reaffirmed the Constance decrees on the point in ques- 
tion, Eugene lY. gave them his express and unqualified 
sanction. The pretence of the curialists, that this was done 
under stress, will not answer. There was the force of pub- 
lic opinion and the pressure of circumstances, so that he did 
what he would have preferred not to do ; but he acted freely, 
without coercion. Moreover, his legates solemnly swore to 
observe the decrees of the Council of Basle, before they 
were permitted to preside. We might bring other evidence 



THE COUNCIL OF TPIE VATICAN. 109 

to prove that Popes have sanctioned the Constance doc- 
trine, upon the relative anthoritj of councils. But the 
great French historians and theologians have established 
the fact long ago. It is only the fresh assertion of the 
contrary proposition by Hefele, and his particular mode of 
defending it, that has induced us to enter into the question 
at all. 

The subject of the trial and execution of Huss is treated 
by Hef ele, on the whole, with commendable fairness. There 
are occasional criticisms on the character and on the state- 
ments of Huss, to which we do not assent, but which are to 
be expected from a Roman Catholic, even though his pro- 
clivities are humane and liberal. Huss, though strongly in- 
fluenced by the writings of "Wickliffe, was quite a different 
man in his intellectual cast. Huss did not carry out his 
principles, as Wickliffe did, to their logical consequences ; 
although, had he lived longer, he might have worked out a 
more complete system. The council found it difficult to 
fasten on propositions which, in the sense in which they 
were intended by him, could justly be declared heretical ; 
and the impatience and passion of the assembly prevented 
him from having a fair and attentive hearing. His occa- 
sional paradoxes, which were in themselves innocent, were 
perversely construed into an assault upon the foundations of 
civil as well as ecclesiastical authority. But the council 
were sagacious enough to discern that he disowned the au- 
thority of the church, and placed himself on the Scriptures 
as he imderstood them. He was, in truth, a Protestant in 
this essential principle. He was ready to renounce errors, 
if he could be convinced that his opinions were errors ; but 
he would not abjure his opinions at the mere command of 
the council. He presented thus, in the attitude which he 
assumed before that body, a practical demonstration to their 
eyes that he was a heretic. D'Ailly, Gerson, and the rest 
of the eminent men who led in the council, and who were 



110 THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE AND 

ready to pull the offending Pope down from his throne, 
were attached as firmly as possible to the doctrine of hier- 
archical authority. They simply held the episcopal, aristo- 
cratic theory that this authority inheres not in the Pope per- 
sonally, but is diffused through the hierarchical body ; that 
the centre of gravity is in the whole assembly of bishops, 
and not in the primate.* They felt it the more necessary, 
since they were effecting changes with a high hand, to mark 
the limits of the reform which they aspired to achieve ; and 
this limit, as one has said, they did mark with blood. Every 
enlightened Protestant Christian who believes that the Scrip- 
tures are the guide in doctrine and life, and that the disci- 
ple has the right to interpret the Scriptures for himself, 
looks up to Huss as a noble witness for the truth and an il- 
lustrious martyr. It is evident that his uprightness, his sin- 
cerity, his unfaltering courage, his spirit of forgiveness, so 
like that of the Master, make a deep impression even upon 
men like Hefele, who yet deem his doctrinal position an er- 
roneous one. Luther, said, in view of the words and con- 
duct of Huss, that if he was not a good Christian, there 
never was one. 

Pespecting the execution of Huss, Hefele has interesting re- 
marks, which are designed to soften the condemnation which 

* The Grallicans distiDguished between the ecdesia universalis^ on the 
one hand, whose only head is Christ, and in which are included Pope, 
cardinals and prelates, priests, kings and princes, and people (plebeii), 
and in which there is salvation, even if there were no Pope to be found 
in the world, and, on the other hand, the more restricted ecdesia apos- 
tolica, composed of Pope, bishops, and other ecclesiastics, which is common- 
ly called the Church of Rome, and of which the Pope is considered the 
head. The Church Universal can never err ; the Church of Rome can 
err and fall into heresy. ' ' Et haec longe minoris auctoritatis videtur 
esse universali ecclesia." (See the passages from Gerson, in Niedner's 
Kirchengesch.^ p. 560, n.) Some of the Galilean leaders held that even 
a general council could err. This was affirmed by Peter d'Ailly at Con- 
stance. (For the passages, see Gieseler, III., v. 1, § 131, n. 4) But Gal- 
licanism finally settled down upon the opinion that a general council is 
infallible. 



THE COUNCIL OF THE VATICAN. Ill 

is visited on tlie council for tliis act ; for it is the council, 
and not Huss, wliicli, in modern days, is on trial. He urges 
the fact that all civil punishments in those days were severe 
and barbarous, even when judged by our standards and by 
existing codes. lie also shows that, according to the univer- 
sal opinion of that age, a heretic, convicted by the proper 
ecclesiastical authority, should and must be put to death by 
the civil magistrate. liuss was adjudged a heretic by the 
highest judicial body; and his opinions were, in fact, if 
compared with the creed, heretical. The legislation, how- 
ever, which inflicted such penalties upon heresy, Hefele 
styles " Draconian," and he deplores the execution of Huss 
the more, since great disadvantages have resulted to the 
church from this iron legislation, and countless misunder- 
standings and misconceptions have been occasioned by it. 
. Hefele brings up the burning of Servetus, as an illustra- 
tion of the sentiments prevalent even a hundred years later 
and among Protestants, respecting the right mode of deal- 
ing with heretics. The feeble attempts which have been 
made in times past to relieve Calvin from the responsibility 
connected with the death of Servetus, are now, for the most 
part, abandoned, as they ought to be. Calvin, seven years 
before the arrest of Servetus, said that if he came to Geneva, 
he should not, with his (Calvin's) consent, go away alive. 
He approved and justified the execution. The " mild Me- 
lancthon," as Hefele truly says, joined in this approval. 
Protestants generally, at that time, held that civil magis- 
trates should use the sword, which is entrusted to them, for 
the extirpation of heresy. The theory of religious persecu- 
tion is now given up, for two reasons. First, there is un- 
doubtedly a different estimate of the criminality involved 
in holding erroneous opinions in religion, and a disposition 
to more charitable judgment. Along with this feeling, 
there is a stronger sense of the difficulty of measuring the 
guilt of false belief. Yet this is not the only, nor is it the 
chief, influence which renders Protestants averse to the use of 



112 THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE AND 

force against what they consider dangerous and miscliievous 
errors. 'Not is the experience of the futility of forcible and 
violent means for the defence of truth, the sole or the prin- 
cipal cause of this change. We may hold that men are 
morally responsible for their beliefs, inasmuch as they are 
responsible for using those liieans of ascertaining the truth 
which God has placed within their reach, and because 
character cannot be dissevered from belief ; and, at the 
same time, we may hold that it is utterly wrong to use force 
for the propagation of truth or the extirpation of error. 
The real ground of this view is, that it is not the function 
of the chm'ch to use, directly or indirectly, any but moral 
influences against rehgious error, and that it is not the func- 
tion of the state to punish men for their opinions. This 
radical alteration in the view that is taken of the proper 
function of the state, and of the church as well, is the 
ground of toleration ; although the other motives to the 
exercise of this spirit, which have been adverted to, are co- 
gent auxiliary reasons. There are two important differences 
between Protestants and Roman Catholics, in regard to this 
subject. The first is, that the amount of persecution of 
which Protestants have been guilty is far less than that for 
which Catholics, in the same period of time, are account- 
able. Thus, Protestants have never perpetrated such cruel- 
ties as were perpetrated in the ^Netherlands by the Roman 
Cathohcs under Philip of Spain and through the Inquisi- 
tion. This difference is not an unimportant one ; since it 
shows that the misgivings which spring fi'om humane Chris- 
tian feeling have had far more practical influence in neutral- 
izing the power of wrong principles among Protestants 
than among Roman Catholics. It took some time for 
Protestants to emancipate themselves from the theory of 
persecution, which was an heir-loom fi'om the middle ages 
and the Catholic hierarchy ; but even before this happy re- 
sult was consummated, it was manifest that the old princi- 
ple of suppressing error by force had relaxed its hold upon 



THE COUNCIL OF THE VATICAN. 113 

tlie Protestant mind. The main difference between Protes- 
tants and Catholics on this subject, however, is that while 
we disown the theory of persecution, and lament that Prot- 
estants should have been so mistaken as to be guilty of it ; 
while, in short, we heartily repent, so far as one generation 
can repent of the errors of another, of all the instances of re- 
ligious persecution in which Protestants bore a part, the Cath- 
olic Church makes no such confession and exercises no such 
compunction. Hefele may deplore the severity of the sen- 
tence against Huss, but even he does not commit himself to 
an absolute rejection of the theory on which that sentence 
was pronounced. To the attitude of the Catholic Church 
generally on this point, we shall soon have occasion again 
to refer. 

The true force and intent of the safe-conduct which Sigis- 
mund had given to Huss, is a topic of much interest to the 
historical student. Did the safe-conduct, properly interpret- 
ed, protect the bearer of it against the council, as well as 
from attacks which might emanate from all other persons and 
bodies ; or was it merely a passport ensuring his safety on 
the journey to Constance, a hearing before the council, and 
a safe return in case of acquittal ? This last interpretation 
is strenuously advocated by Hefele. With him agrees Pa- 
lacky, the learned and usually accurate historian of Bohemia.* 
The same view is adopted by Leo, the German historian, al- 
though his very lukewarm Protestantism should prevent him 
from being quoted, as he sometimes is, as a Protestant 
authority. On the other side are Hallam and most of the 
other Protestant historians. JN'eander speaks of the restrict- 
ed interpretation of the safe-conduct as a device of modern 
sophistical historians, and considers that Sigismund was 
guilty of a perfidious violation of his promise. 

How stands the evidence ? If we look at the terms of the 



* Qeschichte der Bohmen^ III., ii., p. 857, n. 



114 THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE AND 

safe-conduct, we find that Huss is taken nnder the protection 
of Sigismund and of the empire, and that all lords and mag- 
istrates are enjoined to permit him, without hindrance or mo- 
lestation, to go and retm-n — ^' transire, stare, morari, et redire 
libere." Hefele concedes that his safe return was guaran- 
teed, provided he should be acquitted ; but no exception or 
proviso is found in the document itself. This exception 
Hefele considers to be implied in the nature of the case. 
Huss was going before a judicial bodj to be tried, and it is 
not to be supposed that the emperor would undertake to 
protect him against the verj tribunal before which, as an ac- 
cused person, he was to make answer. The replj to this is, 
that Huss did not so regard the council. He often said that 
he desired to bring his cause before the council ; but in 
his expressions of this nature, there is always the avowed or 
implied qualification, that unless he. can be convinced of the 
error of his opinions, he shall not abandon them. To give 
up his alleged errors, provided they can be shown to be such, 
he ever professes his readiness, but only on this condition. 
In reality, he wished to vindicate himself before so great an 
assembly, and in this public and conspicuous manner, against 
aspersions that had been thrown out by his enemies, and he 
wished to show what sort of a man he was by a free and 
open declaration of his opinions and feelings. It was always 
far from his design, as his whole conduct as well as words 
prove, to surrender the convictions of his own mind, in con- 
sequence of a mandate from any man or body of men. Xo 
weight, therefore, is to be attached to this argument of Hefele, 
especially as there is no evidence that Sigismund, prior to the 
council, had a materially different idea respecting the design 
of Huss's visit to Constance, fi^om that of Huss himself. But 
what was the interpretation which Huss himself gave to the 
safe-conduct ? He considered that Sigismund had bound 
himself to bring him back in safety to Bohemia. In one of 
his last letters, he accuses Sigismund of breaking his engage- 
ment, and says, that he ought to have told the council : "If 



THE COUNCIL OF THE VATICAN. 115 

he (Huss) does not choose to abide the decision of the coun- 
cil, I will send him to the king of Bohemia, together with 
your sentence and the documents in support of it, to the end 
that he [the king] with his clergy may judge him." * Huss 
adds that Sigismund had allow^ed Henry Lefl and others to 
say to him, that he should be brought back unhurt, in case 
he chose not to submit to the judgment of the council. 
Peter von Mladenowicz, the fi'iend of Huss, declares the 
same thing. Hefele and Palacky say that nothing should 
have been built by Huss and his friends on such declarations, 
since they manifestly transcended the bounds of Sigismund's 
lawful power. But this answer appears to us insufficient. 
The veracity of Huss cannot be called in question ; and if 
the official agents of Sigismund gave him this assurance, it 
is probable that Sigismund expected to be able to verify it. 
That Sigismund blushed when PIuss fixed his eyes upon him, 
at the moment when the sentence of the council was pro- 
nounced, rests upon the testimony of a credible eye-witness. 
That it was a fact wddely reported, may be inferred from the 
remark of Charles Y. at Worms, when, in reference to a 
suggestion that he should avail himself of the opportunity 
to lay hold of Luther, he said that he would not blush like 
his predecessor Sigismund. Whether more or less impor- 
tance is attached to this famous blush of Sigismund, the fact 
seems to rest on pretty good authority. The only argument 
of much w^eight on Hefele's side of the question, is derived 
from a passage in one of the remonstrances addressed by the 
Bohemian nobles to Sigismund, after Huss had been taken 
into custody, and before he had been brought before the 
council. The arrest of Huss, as is well known, was effected 
by the cardinals on their own authority, with the consent of 
John XXIII. — involuntary consent, as he declared to the 
Bohemians. It is acknowledged on all hands that this im- 
prisonment was considered, by the Bohemian friends of Huss, 

* The language of Huss is given by Hefele, p. 236. 



116 THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE AND 

and by Sigismimd himself, a flagrant violation of the terms 
of the safe-conduct. Sigismnnd, having threatened to liber- 
ate him by force, actually went so far as to quit Constance 
— so indignant was he >that the council did not adopt effi- 
cient means to relieve him from this disgrace. It was only 
when it was strongly represented to him that if the council 
was to be controlled in its action, all the hopes of reform 
and of terminating the schism would be nipped in the bud, 
that he consented to come back. When by the flight of his 
custodians, Huss was released from the hands of the cardi- 
nals, the Bohemians were confident in the expectation that 
Sigismnnd would deliver him from his cruel confinement and 
procure for him a hearing before the council. When this 
did not follow, but Huss was still kept in prison, the Bohe- 
mians were yet more aggrieved and exasperated. Among 
the petitions and remonstrances with which they endeavored 
to move the council and Sigismnnd to fulfill the obligations 
under which he had placed himself, there is one in which 
they say, that provided Huss is found guilty before the 
council, and his false doctrine is shovTi to him, they do not 
expect that he is to go away unpunished, but that the em- 
peror may then do with him what he chooses. The phrase 
is: — '^Nec vero cupimus, ut convictus, falsaque doctrina ipsi 
ostensa, impunitus abeat. Sed tum prout potest, cum ipso 
agat, deque ipso quod vult f aciat." * Possibly they mean no 
more than Huss meant himself in his professions of a will- 
ingness to bow to the council, if they will show him — that 
is, make him see — that he is in error. We must allow that 
this is not the most natural interpretation of the phrase. It 
is more naturally interpreted as implying a strong desire 
that he should be delivered from his gaolers and be heard 
before the council, with the judgment of which, even if un- 
favorable to Huss, his friends would be content. If this be 
the true meaning of the passage in the Bohemians' petition 

♦Vander Hardt, iii., 33. 



THE COUNCIL OF THE VATICAN. 117 

to Sigismnnd, we mnst conclude that the exact sense of the 
safe-conduct was not definitely understood by all of the par- 
ties concerned, and that a discussion and difference of opin- 
ion as to its intent and scope sprung up, when the true mean- 
ing of it became a matter of vital moment."^- 

In this place, we may notice an unjust criticism of Hefele 
upon Gieseler. Says the former : " Finally, in reference to 
the letter of safe-conduct, another still heavier offence has 
been laid to the charge of the Council of Constance, which 
Gieseler thus formulizes : 'in order to justify the emperor 
on account of his violated safe-conduct, the council put 
forth the shameless decree, that no faith is to be kept with a 
heretic ! ' For the sake of giving at least the semblance of 
a proof, Gieseler cites two decrees of the Constance Synod, 
wdiich Yan der Hardt (t. iv., p. 521) and Mansi (t. xxvii., 
pp. 791 and 799) have communicated. The first of them 
says : ' if a prince, also, has given out a letter of safe-con- 
duct, the Ecclesiastical Court is still authorized to bring the 
person charged with heresy to an examination, and, if he shows 
himself gnilty and contumacious, to punishment ; neverthe- 
less, he who has given the safe-conduct is bound, as far as 
stands in his power, to labor to fulfil it.' I know not what 
solid objection any one, from the stand-point of those times, 
could bring to this. But against Gieseler it can be said with 
the best reason, that he has grossly sinned against the synod 
and against the truth, in just leaving out the conclusion of 
the reprobated decree, viz. : ' that the giver of the safe-con- 
duct must do his utmost to fulfil it.' " Gieseler combines 
with an unsurpassed thoroughness of investigation an un- 
equalled accuracy of statement. His frigid impartiality is 
one of his leading characteristics. He is totally incapable 

* The safe-conduct obtained for Jerome was diflferently drawn up ; but 
this proceeded from the council. 

Ferdinand, King of Aragon, exerted himself to persuade Sigismund 
that he ought not, on account of the safe-conduct, to protect the heretic 
from the penalty of death. 



118 THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE AND 

of a wilful sujpjpressio "vey^i. Looking into Yan der Hardt, 
we find that the decree referred to is abbreviated and imper- 
fectly paraphrased by Hefele, in the passage jtist cited. 
The decree declares that a safe-condnct issued to heretics or 
persons charged with heresy, by kings or other princes, with 
whatever bond they may have bound themselves — quocunque 
vinculo se astrinxerint — can work no prejudice to the Catho- 
lic faith and interpose no hindrance in the way of the ar- 
raignment and punishment of such persons by the proper 
ecclesiastical tribunal, even though they may have come to 
the place of trial, trusting in the safe-conduct, and would 
not have come without it. Then follows the concluding 
sentence, omitted by Gieseler : " Xor is the promiser, when 
he has otherwise done what in him lies, any further obliged, 
in consequence of his engagement." * Xow, it is obvious that 
this sentence does not affect materially the import of the de- 
cree. But in the text of Yan der Hardt, it is given in 
brackets (with a reference to two manuscripts m which it is 
found) ; and it was probably a doubt as to its genuineness 
that led Gieseler to leave it out. The second decree, assert- 
ing that in the matter of a safe-conduct, faith need not be 
kept by princes with heretics, Hefele declares not to have 
been passed by the comicil, and to be found only in one co- 
dex. But it is given as authentic by Yan der Hardt, and 
although Hefele' s view may, perhaps, be correct, that it was 
a programme or original proposition for which the first 
quoted decree was substituted — this decree being the one 
that actually passed in the general session — there is not the 
smallest ground for impugning the honesty and impartiality 
of Gieseler. The decree, in the most offensive form of it, 
asserts that the king had done what he lawfully could and 
what it behoved him to do, in the matter of the safe-con- 
duct, f The obnoxious clause affirms that Huss, by persist- 

* Nee sic promittentem, cum alias fecerit quod in ipso est, ex hoc in 
aliquo remansisse obligatum, 

f " Ex debito fecisse quod licuit, et quod decuit Regiam Majestatem." 



THE COUNCIL OF THE VATICAN. 119 

ently attacking the orthodox faith, has pnt himself beyond 
tlie pale — reddiderit alienmn — of every safe-conduct and 
privilege ; '' nor is any faith or promise to be kept with him, 
by natm-al right, divine or human, to the prejudice of the 
Catholic Church." The doctrine which both decrees were 
framed to embody, was the same, namely, that a safe-con- 
duct from a secular prince gives to a heretic no protection 
against the lawful ecclesiastical tribmial. The decree which, 
according to Hefele, was passed, simply formulizes this doc- 
trine. The otlier decree adds the reason that promises of 
protection to one who tm-iis out to be an obstinate heretic 
are ipso facto void. The theologians, from, the first, en- 
deavored to indoctrinate Sigismund with the idea that his 
safe-conduct was limited and qualified by the absolute rights 
of the ecclesiastical tribunal to try and convict heretics; 
and there were not wanting those who put the doctrine in 
the repulsive form in which it appears in the draft of the 
second decree referred to by Gieseler. It is evident that 
there was complaint and loud complaint that Sigismund had 
broken his engagement ; otherwise, there would have been 
no occasion for such a decree, in either form. The decree 
which Hefele allows to have been passed, proves not less 
clearly than the other, that an accusation of bad faith had 
been brought against the emperor, which was founded on 
his failure to protect Huss from the penalty imposed by the 
council. 

Huss was condemned. The old quarrel in the university 
of Prague, which resulted in the desertion of the university 
by the whole body of German teachers and students, had 
some infiuence in increasing that spirit of hostility towards 
the Bohemian innovators, w^hich inflamed the council ; but 
the influence of this circumstance w^as comparatively small. 
The philosophical quarrel between nominalism, w^hich was 
now once more in the ascendancy at Paris and elsewhere, 
and realism, to which in common with Anselm and the 
most orthodox of the schoolmen, Huss, like Wickliffe, ad- 



120 THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE AND 

hered, sharpened the antagonism of Gerson. But the vio- 
lent and mob-like deportment of the council, which con- 
trasts so unfavorably with the noble serenity and self-pos- 
session of their victim, was due to the vindictive hatred which 
was felt towards what they called heresy. This sentiment 
was sufficient to paralyze all wiser and more humane feel- 
ings, even in the hearts of good men — for such, we doubt 
not, were many of those who killed Huss, and for whose 
forgiveness he, remembering the words of his djing Master, 
prayed. Say what one will of minor, incidental questions, 
like this of the intent of the safe-conduct, and bring for- 
ward what other examples one may of ecclesiastical tyranny 
and cruelty, it remains true that a frightful tragedy was en- 
acted at Constance, when a sincere, earnest preacher of the 
Gospel, inspired with heroic courage and Christian gentle" 
ness, and so elevated by faith and love that death had for 
him no terrors, was killed for his opinions by men who 
claimed to be acting in the name of Jesus and by his author- 
ity. Luther published four of the impressive letters which 
Huss wrote while he was in prison and shortly before his 
death, "^ and in the preface Luther gives an interesting remi- 
niscence concerning himself. Lie says that when he was a 
young theologue at Erfurt, he took down from the convent 
library a volume of Huss's sermons. He was curious to see 
for what heresies it was that Lluss had been killed ; but, as 
he read, he was struck with astonishment that a man who 
wrote in so excellent and Christian a way should have been 
burned to death for heresy. As he put back the volume, 
he thought to himself — not knowing then the particulars of 
the history — that Huss must have become a heretic after 
writing these sermons. 

Eossuet wrote a book on the variations of Protestantism. 
Quite as copious and telling a book might be written on the 

* These letters are included in the edition of Huss's letters in prison, 
published by Micowek. 



*TTIE COUNCIL OF THE VATICAN. 121 

variations of Roman Catliolicism ; and, we may add, in 
such a work tlie name of Bossuet himself would figure 
largely. Bellarmine, an eminent exponent of the Papal, anti- 
Gallican theology, and a great name in the estimation of all 
parties, resorts to different subterfuges in order to escape 
from the difficulty occasioned by the Constance decrees rela- 
tive to the power of a council.'^ He brings forward the ut- 
terly false position of Turrecremata, Canipegius, and others, 
that the Constance propositions were meant to apply only to 
times of schism, when opinion is divided as to who is the 
lawful Pope. He denies, of course, that Martin Y. opposed 
the decrees in question, and makes the term conciliariter^ or 
Goncilialite7\ mean " after the manner of other councils, the 
matter having been diligently examined ; " a totally differ- 
ent definition from either of those given by Hefele, and one 
altogether unfounded. Equally unfounded is the assertion 
that when Martin approved of the decrees which had been 
adopted clefide and concilialiter^ he referred solely to those 
against the Wickliffites and Hussites. Bellarmine denies 
that John XXIH. and Gregory IX. were deposed against 
their will, and affirms that, admitting that they were, the 
power to depose them does not involve the power to frame 
new dogmas. His whole treatment of this question is ac- 
cording to his usual method, which is to bring forward 
everything that can be said, with any degree of plausibility, 
against the antagonist, whether the considerations advanced 
are consistent with one another or not. He is master of the 
art of fencing ; a typical polemic. Bellarmine maintains the 
opinion that the Pope is absolutely superior to a council, 
and that he cannot be deposed. f In an earlier section of his 
work, :j: he takes up the question whether a heretical Pope 
can be deposed, and discusses it at length. He begins by 
stating the opinion of Pighius that a Pope cannot be a here- 



* C. Ill, lib. ii., c. xix., p. 1222 seq. 
f C. IV., 1. ii., c. xxii. seq. X C. III., ii., c. xxx. 

6 



122 THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE AND 

tic, and with tliis opinion he expresses his concurrence. 
" Yet," he adds, " because it is not certain, and the common 
ojpinion is the 0])j)Osite " — " commnnis opinio est in contra- 
rium " — " it will be worth while to see w^hat answer can be 
given, provided it be allowed that the Pope can be a heretic." 
It seems, by Bellarmine's ovni concession, that it was the 
common opinion that a Pope could fall into heresy. Bellar- 
mine, with the rest of the advocates of the indefectibility of 
the Pope, is involved in extreme embarrassment by exam- 
ples like those of Liberius, who cast off Athanasins, signed 
the confession of the semi-Arians, and received them to his 
feUowship, and of Honorius, who espoused the cause of the 
Monothelites, and was anathematized as a heretic by the 6th 
General Council, as well as by several of his own successors. 
The various evasions that have been sought out for the pur- 
pose of avoiding these unwelcome facts, form a curious 
chapter in polemical theology. Hefele, while he contends 
that Liberius was not a heretic in his real opinion on the 
Trinity, allows that his constancy so far broke down, that he 
purchased his return from exile by deserting the orthodox 
Athanasians, abjuring the term honioousion (and with it, of 
course, giving up the Nicene creed), and by joining hands 
with heretics. Xewman, in his edition of Athanasins, styles 
Liberius " a renegade." "^ He speaks of that time as one 
when '' the Latins " were '' committed to an anti-Catliolic 
creed, the Pope a renegade, Hosius fallen and dead, Atha- 
nasins wandering in the deserts, Arians in the sees of Chris- 
tendom," etc. That Liberius gave up the Nicene formulary 
and allied himself with the semi-Arians, is an unquestiona- 
ble fact. Athanasins, Jerome, and Hilary are strong wit- 
nesses to his unfaithfulness. The instance of Honorius is 
still more perplexing to the curialists. He' expressed his 
concurrence with the Monothelite, Sergius. All that Hefele 
can claim in behalf of him is, that he was a Dyothelite at 

* P. 127, N. c. 



THE COUNCIL OF THE VATICAN.^ 123 

hearty but not competent to handle the question, and was 
tlierefore led to the avowal of opposite principles. That he 
took the Monothelite position in his letters to Sergius, will 
be clear to every unprejudiced person who is familiar with 
the points that were under discussion. "^ But whether he 
did or not, it is a fact that he was anathematized as a here- 
tic bv the 6th General Council, in repeated declarations. It 
is a fact that this condemnation was approved by the Pope, 
as well as by the emperor. It is a fact, moreover, that 
Pope Leo II., who had succeeded Agatho, reiterated the 
anathema of the council. " Pariter anathemitizamus novi 
erroris inventores, id est, Theodorum Pharinitanum episco- 
pum, Cyrum Alexandrinum, Sergium, Pyrrhum, Paulum, 
Petrum, Constantinopolitanse ecclesise subsessores magis 
quani prsesules, necnon et Honorium, qui hanc apostolicam 
sedem non apostolicas traditionis doctrina lustravit, sed pro- 
fana proditione immaculatam fidem subvertere conatus est 
[or, according to the Greek, subvert! permisit] et omnes, qui 
in suo errore defuncti sunt." In a letter to the Spanish 
bishops, and in another letter to King Erwig, Leo charged 
Honorius with nourishing the flames of heretical doctrine 
and defiling the spotless rule of apostolic tradition which he 
had received from his predecessors. The TruUan Synod 
(Concilium Quinisextum) repeated the condemnation of 
Honorius, which the 6th Council had passed. The 7th 
General Council did the same, and so did the 8th. Pope 
Hadrian 11. (867-872) wrote : ^' although the anathema was 
pronounced upon Honorius after his death, yet it is to be 
understood that it was because he was charged with heresy, 
for which cause alone it is allowed to inferiors to resist th-c 
movements of their superiors." This declaration of Ha- 
drian was read and approved in the 7th session of the 8th 
General Council. Hefele shows fully and conclusively that 
Honorius was condemned by the 6th General Council for 

* See, on this point, Neander, III., 179, n. 3. 



124 THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE AND 

heresy. He holds that the council was right in doing this, 
since they conld not look into his heart, but must judge his 
declarations and avowals, which are really heretical. The 
foolish, because desperately futile, endeavor of Baronius to 
make out that the name of Honorius had been falsely in- 
serted in the proceedings of the 6th General Council, is com- 
pletely demolished in the thu'd volume of Hefele, where 
proofs of the foregoing statements may be found. Popes 
and councils, then, have united in anathematizing Honorius 
as a patron and supporter of heresy. Did they believe that 
a Pope is indefectible ? When Popes acknowledged the 6th 
General Council and anathematized Honorius, did they hold 
the doctrine that a Pope cannot err from the faith ? When 
all other subterfuges fail, the defenders of Papal infallibility 
set up the plea that Honorius was uttering private opinions, 
not public definitions of doctrine 1 Letters, then, from the 
Bishop of Pome to the Bishop of Constantinople on -a doc- 
trinal question that is agitating the whole chm-ch, are desti- 
tute of authority ! 

Since ^vriting the foregoing remarks upon the case of 
Honorius, we have received the pamphlet of M. Gratry,* 
priest of the Oratoire and member of the French Academy, 
which relates to just this topic. M. Gratry is a distinguished 
writer upon philosophy and theology. We recollect that 
his able work on The Knowledge of God\ is preceded 
by a commendatory letter from Pius IX. In the little 
pamphlet before us, M. Gratry expresses his strong sense of 
the wrong that is done to history by the attempts to falsify 
the testimonies to the condemnation of Honorius for heresy. 
He shows that Honorius was condemned for heresy " by 
three oecumenical councils which were approved by the 
Popes, by two Poman coimcils, which were presided over 

*Mgr. L'Eveque D'Orleans et Mgr. L'Archeveque de Malines. Pre- 
miere lettre a Mgr. Dechamps. Par A. Gratry, Pretre de Toratoire, mem- 
bre de Tacademie Frangaise. Paris : 1870. 

f La Connaissance de Dieu. 



THE COUNCIL OF THE VATICAN. 125 

by Popes, and by tlie pontifical profession of faith in use 
for ages (plusieiirs siecles). He exposes, with strong dis- 
pleasure, the absurd pretense that the Cth Council meant 
anything by heresy except that which the word imports. 
He shows that Leo H. anathematized Honorius for some- 
thing besides mere negligence. It was the neglect to ex- 
tinguish an error which grew out of sympathy with it, and 
a willingness that it should prevail. He reminds Arch- 
bishop Manning that he exposes himself to the penalty of 
excommunication threatened against all defenders of here- 
tics, when, in the face of the verdict of three general coun- 
cils, he assumes, in the exercise of his individual judgment, 
to pronounce the offending letters of Honorius to be free 
from heresy. But M. Gratry is jespecially earnest in his pro- 
test against the changes that have been introduced into the 
Roman breviary and the Libei^ Dmrnus. In all the copies 
of the former, up to the commencement of the sixteenth 
century, the condemnation of Honorius is mentioned. The 
name of Honorius has now been stricken out. The Liber 
Dmrmis contains the ancient confession of faith of the 
Popes. This included the condemnation of Honorius, but 
the Liber Dhtrmis, containing the disagreeable passage, is 
now suppressed. These things, together with the evasions 
of the Papal apologists for Honorius, appear to M. Gratry 
to be examples of intolerable duplicity and mendacity. He 
inquires if the church and the Pope are to be helped by 
lies ! In the last number of the quarterly journal of Hefele,* 
there is a brief Article by the learned editor on the Liber 
Diurnus. He affirm-s that it is perfectly clear that at the 
beginning of the eighth century it was held at Rome that a 
Pope might be subjected to trial and condemnation, at the 
hands of a general council, for heresy, and also for negli- 
gence in his office. Ilefele does not explicitly say, either in 
this Article or in his LListory of CoimcilSy whether or not 

* Quartal-schrift. 1869, 4. 



126 THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE AND 

Leo n. anathematized Honorius for heresy as well as for 
criminal negligence. He does not conceal, however, the 
fact that Leo 11. approved of the proceedings of the 6th 
Conncil, and the fact that by the conncil Honorius was 
condemned for being himseK a heretic. That Leo H. and 
the other Popes meant, in their reiterated anathemas, to 
charge npon Honorins more than mere remissness, even real 
participation in heresy, is made evident byM. Gratry. The 
further plea that Honorins was not speaking ex cathedra, 
when responding to interrogatories of the Eastern primates 
on a debated question of doctrine, is effectively disposed of 
in this little pamphlet. 

The S}Tiod of the Yatican, which Pius IX. has convoked 
to rebuke the errors of the times, is a much less imposing 
assemblage than that which was gathered within the ancient 
walls of Constance. The realistic or practical spirit of the 
nineteenth century neither provides nor craves a pageant 
such as gratified the taste of the fifteenth. The mediaeval 
passion for symbols and shows has now, to a great extent, 
passed away. Everything in the present council betokens 
the altered condition of church and society. That the Pope 
should gather a council at Pome, summon it into his own 
court and camp, as it were ; also, that he should be suifered 
to mark out and manage its proceedings, with little, if any, 
audible remonstrance, mdicates a great change, even since 
the days of the Tridentine Synod, in the temper of the 
bishops. The absence of the sovereigns and princes is 
another notable feature, indicating that the policy of the 
church is not coincident with that of the European state's, 
and that church and state move in different orbits. The 
cabinets stand aloof, prepared, if it is thought expedient, to 
withstand and thwart the determinations of the council. 
The church, in turn, asks no advice from the civil rulers, 
and is conscious how little practical authority she exercises 
over their conduct and over the course of political affairs. 

On one of the two great points which absorbed the at- 



THE COUNCIL OF THE VATICAN. 127 

tention of tlie fathers at Constance, tliere is a remarkable 
contrast between tliat body and the one now in session. 
The prerogatives of the Pope are again a topic of discus- 
sion ; but we find a powerful party in favor of declaring the 
personal infallibility of the Pope. If a general council 
could be brought to renounce the very prerogative w^hich 
liberal Catholics have claimed for it, that would be a 
triumph for the papacy indeed. The monster vrhich has 
so long lifted its head against the chair of Peter would 
strangle itself. The principles and aims of the ultramon- 
tanist party are well set forth in the Pastoral Letter of 
Archbishop Manning, one of their most prominent leaders. 
He writes in vigorous English. It is almost a pleasure to 
read invectives against one's self, when they are uttered in 
the terse and polished style of this noted prelate. We find 
in his pamphlet a distinct expression of the ultramontanist 
theology, the very principles which Innocent III. proclaimed 
when the papacy was at the summit of its power. The 
Lord made Peter, and the successors of Peter, the fountain 
both of doctrine and of jurisdiction. Episcopal authority, 
therefore, is derived from the Pope and through him. He 
is the bishop of bishops, and the doctor of the universal 
church. We cannot praise Bossuet, " when his illustrious 
name is imder a cloud." " Ultramontanism is Catholic 
Christianity." The object of greatest dislike to this repre- 
sentative of the Papal party is "nationalism." It is a 
Judaic notion that began to rise when the idea of Catholic 
unity began to decline. It was the rise of modern nation- 
alities, we are told, that caused the great Western schism and 
Protestantism after it. This is the Archbishop's protest 
against modern civilization, for modern civilization, as dis- 
tinguished from mediseval, is inseparable from the rise of 
nationalities to distinct and separate existence, and to a con- 
sciousness of separate rights and obligations. What is Man- 
ning's theory ? Does he think that the resistance to Boni- 
face YIIL by France was all w^rong ? Does he approve of 



128 THE COrNCIL OF CONSTANCE AND 

the bulls of Boniface — clericis laicos and all? Does lie 
think that the Em^opean nations and their governments 
should have yielded humble submission to the lofty claims of 
the Papal See to a dominion over them ? Does he think that 
the Council of Constance committed a capital error in seek- 
ing to cm-tail the Papal office? Should that council, in- 
stead of voting by nations, have allowed John XXIIL, with 
his host of Italian ecclesiastics, to govern the Assembly by 
their numerical force ? What would have been the condi- 
tion of the Koman Catholic Church if this had happened ? 
It would seem that the Ai'chbishop is prepared to sanction 
the doctrine which the most ambitious of the Popes for- 
mulized and acted upon, that the state is to be subject to 
the church, and that civil governments are to receive law 
from the Pope. When one reads, in the light of history, 
the Ai'chbishop's fine phrases about the union of the two 
jm-isdictions, the church and state, and " the supreme direc- 
tion of the supernatural over the natural law," coupled as 
these phrases are with denunciations of the system that 
subordinates the church to the state, or makes the latter in- 
dependent of the former, and with a general disapproval of 
the " nationalism " which is the prevailing characteristic of 
the fi-ee civilization of the modern age, one is led to conclude 
that it is the realization of the old and fallen assumptions 
of Hildebrand, Innocent III., and Boniface, that this enthu- 
siastic prelate hopes to behold. 

It is not strange that French ecclesiastics are affronted at 
the supercilious and slighting tone in which Maiming speaks 
of Gallicanism. He affects to consider this a transient epi- 
sode in the coiu'se of the history of the Chm-ch of France ; 
a divergence fi'om the orthodox faith, which never counted 
in its favor more than a fraction of the French clerg3\ And 
he identifies Gallicanism with the movement of Louis XIY. 
and the Declaration of 1682. The Archbishop misreads 
history. If we take Gallicanism, as Bossuet defines it, as 
consisting of the three principles of the independence of 



THE COUNCIL OF THE VATICAN. 129 

kings, as to temporalities, of ecclesiastical control, the deri- 
vation of episcopal authority immediately fi^om Christ, and 
the authority of councils, we shall find the roots of this 
type of Catholicism far back in French history. The pecu- 
liarities of the French Church, as a national church, claim- 
ing rights and privileges of its own, appear in full vigor in 
the days of Charlemagne. They were maintained by Louis 
IX. with persevering energy, against Papal encroachments. 
In the eventful period before the Protestant movement, 
when great but ineifectual efforts at reform were attempted, 
it was French doctors and statesmen who were forward and 
influential in the effort to restrict Papal prerogatives, as well 
as to remedy Papal abuses. Gallicanism is not at all the 
transient and erratic phenomenon which Manning repre- 
sents it to be. 

In view of such declarations as are made in this pam- 
phlet of Manning, and in other publications of the ultra- 
montanist party, the question arises whether the council of 
the Vatican is to reaffirm the principles on which John 
Huss and Jerome of Prague were led to the stake. We 
shoidd be glad to have explicit information on this subject. 
The question is not whether the form and degree of penalty 
to be inflicted for opinions w^hich are judged heretical, may 
not be changed to suit modern ideas of the criminal code. It 
is to be presumed that neither Pope nor bishops would wish 
to have Protestants or other heretics burned at the stake. 
But the question is, whether the principle that church and 
state may rightfully combine, the one to adjudge the de- 
gree of their guilt, and the other to inflict the penalty upon 
persevering opposers of the Roman Catholic dogmas, is still 
held ? Ought men to be punished criminally by the chm-ch, 
or by the state executing the church's verdict, for hereti- 
cal opinions ? If we seek for an answer to this question in 
the Pope's Encyclical, we find that the old doctrine of per- 
secution appears to be approved and asserted, and the mod- 
ern doctrine of toleration appears to be condemned and de- 
6* 



130 THE COrNCIL OF COXSTAXCE AXD 

nounced. The liberty of conscience, Tvliicli is conceded by 
modern states, is set down among the damnable errors of the 
times. Wbat does the Pope mean ? If he does not mean 
that civil governments onght to nse force to punish persons 
who teach doctrines which are pronounced by him or by the 
Catholic Church heretical, what do these statements of the 
Encyclical signify ? The " bloody tenet of persecution " is 
not yet abandoned, but, it would seem, is again to be assert- 
ed in audacious opposition to the humane and Christian 
spii'it of the age, and in obstinate derogation of the precepts 
of the founder of Christianity. 

The other point of the Pope's infallibility, in which, if 
the new dogma is carried, the Council of Constance will be 
flatly contradicted by the Yatican Synod, is one which an 
enemy of the Catholic Chm-ch might wish to see adopted. 
Por om'selves, if the Eoman Catholic Church is to act prac- 
tically upon this dogma, as it has done in regard to the Im- 
maculate Conception of the Virgin, we should prefer to have 
it defined and declared ; for then it would be more likely to 
awaken opposition. But we should prefer that the doctrine 
should be neither practically nor theoretically received. "We 
may desire that evil should be manifested, but not that evil 
should be done, in order that good may come. And we have 
no hostility to the Poman Catholic Church except so far as 
we deem its doctrines erroneous. 

One of Manning's arguments in favor of an authoritative 
proclamation of the infallibility of the Pope is derived from 
the need of such a doctrine. Protestants are told that the 
church is infallible, but they taunt Catholics with the fact 
of a division among themselves as to the place where infal- 
libility resides. Persons in quest of a safe harbor into which 
they can retreat from the agitations of doubt, are exhorted to 
cast themselves upon the authority of the chm-ch ; but when 
they comply with the counsel, they hear it said by some 
that the Pope's definitions of doctrine are not irreformable. 
We fear, however, that if the ultramontanists were to se- 



THE COUNCIL OF THE VATICAN. 131 

cure their end, difficulties and perplexities would still re- 
main. What are the bounds and limits of this Papal infal- 
libility ? We are told bj Perrone and the other Catholic 
theologians of this school, that his infallibility relates only 
to matters pertaining to faith and morals, and that on these 
matters he is unerring only when he speaks to the whole 
church in his character of universal bishop. The fine dis- 
tinctions which are made by these theologians remind us 
of a passage in the Hepublic of Plato, where Socrates, in 
one of his paradoxical speeches, argues that no physician 
can err, since when he mistakes he is not in that mistake, 
or so far as he makes it, a physician ; and that no pilot can 
err, since, if he misleads a vessel, he is not in this act a pilot, 
and so of the various trades and professions. A thousand 
questions would immediately arise respecting the metes and 
bounds of this supernatural prerogative of the Pope, if it 
were to be authoritatively ascribed to him. Moreover, the 
historical perplexities in which the champions of the Ro- 
man Catholic system would be involved, already great enough 
to task them to the utmost, would be much enhanced through 
such a decree. 

The Poman Catholic hierarchy assumes to stand, with 
priestly prerogatives, between the soul and God. This doc- 
trine of a priesthood in the Christian church, all consistent 
Protestants unite in rejecting. It is the first great corrup- 
tion of Christianity. It is grateful to notice occasional 
symptoms of a more true and spiritual conception of the 
Gospel and the church. Father Hyacinthe, in one of his 
sermons or addresses, remarks that he cannot look on these 
great Protestant communities, with all the fruits of religion 
which they exhibit, as disinherited of the Holy Ghost. The 
expression is a very striking one.- It shows how the very 
warmth and honesty of Christian feeling may carry one be- 
yond the narrow bounds of sect. It was just this recogni- 
tion of the fruits or effects of the Spirit, that opened the 
eyes of the Apostle Peter, and broke down his traditional 



132 THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE AND 

prejudice. " Forasmucli," he said, " as God gave them the 
like gift as he did unto us, who believed on the Lord Jesus 
Christ, what was I that I could withstand God ? " (Acts xi. 
17.) A like argument brought all of the apostles to give 
the right hand of fellowship to Paul and Barnabas. Thej 
learned that the Spirit was not cou fined in the channel to 
which they had limited His operations. A new dispensa- 
tion had come, which was of a different character from the 
old. The revival of Judaism in the Roman Catholic 
Church obscured for ages an essential peculiarity of the 
Gospel and the Gospel dispensation. Such words as these 
of Father Hyacinthe, to which we have referred, indicate, in 
our judgment, the way in which the Roman Catholic error 
and all sectarian narrowness will ultimately disappear. 
Good men will be compelled to acknowledge that a Chris- 
tianity as genuine and as valuable, it may be, as their own, 
is found outside of the borders in which they had supposed 
it to be confined. 



]^0TE.* Me. Gladstone's Discussion of the Vatican 
Decrees. — The Yatican Council defined the infallibility of 
the Pope, as follows : " That the Roman Pontiff, when he 
speaks ex cathedrd^ that is, when in discharge of the office of 
pastor and doctor of all Christians, by vu^tue of his supreme 
apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine regarding faith or 
morals to be held by the Universal Church, by the divine 
assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, is possessed of 
that infallibility with which the divine Redeemer willed 
that his church should be endowed for defining doctrine re- 
garding faith or morals ; and that, therefore, such definitions 
are irreformable of themselves, and not fi*om consent of the 
church." (C. iv.) That is to say, when the Pope puts forth 

* This note is from contributions to the N. Y. Daily Times^ of March 
18, 1875, and The Christian Union, of April 7, 1875. 



THE COUNCIL OF THE VATICAN. 133 

a doctrinal or ethical proposition, which he intends that the 
whole church shall receive, he is infallible. As to the limit 
of the province within which he cannot err, it is a just infer- 
ence that he is the sole authoritative judge ; since the point 
whether any proposition is fairly included in the depart- 
ment of faith and morals, is itself a theological or ethical ques- 
tion. But the Vatican Council also accorded to the Pope 
an equally unlimited jurisdiction as regards government and 
discipline. The definitions on the topic conclude thus : "If, 
then, any shall say that the Homan Pontiff has the office 
merely of inspection or direction, and not full and supreme 
power over the universal church, not only in things which 
belong to faith and morals, but also in those which relate 
to the jurisdiction and government of the church spread 
throughout the world ; or assert that he possesses merely 
the principal part, and not all the fulness of this supreme 
power ; or that this power which he enjoys is not ordinary 
and immediate, but over each and all the churches, and over 
each and all the pastors and the faithful — let him be anath- 
ema." (C. iii.) 

Mr. Gladstone's pamphlet on the Vatican Decrees in 
their Relation to Civil Allegiance^ is written in a grave and 
elevated tone, and, from the character of its arguments, as 
well as from the position of the author, could not fail to 
make a profound impression. It is a powerful, and at the 
same time, a temperate arraignment of the Vatican defini- 
tions quoted above, as being subversive of the rights 
of the state and the obligations of the subject. The most 
noteworthy replies from the Homan Catholic side are those 
of Archbishop Manning, Dr. l^ewman, and Monsignor 
Capel. Dr. I^ewman's tract is marked by his wonted felicity 
in composition and ingenuity in argument. All his con- 
troversial writings have the note of urbanity — a charm which 
cannot be said to belong in the same degree to the produc- 
tions of Manning. Mr. Gladstone's able and spirited rejoin- 
der to his critics bears the title of Vaticanism, The fol- 



134 THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE AND 

lowing is a brief statement of the main points in this inter- 
esting debate. 

The chief allegation in Mr. Gladstone's first pamphlet 
Was that the Yatican decrees are incompatible with the duty 
of obedience to the civil aiithoritj. Incidentally his discus- 
sion involved an examination of the powers accorded to the 
papacy at present, as compared with the past, and of the 
bearing of the new ecclesiastical measures npon the liberty 
and personal responsibility of the individual who submits to 
them. 

1. Mr. Gladstone is at issue with his opponents on the 
authority and meaning of the Syllabus. This document was 
issued fi'om Rome in 1864. It purports to be a brief state- 
ment of the errors which the present Pope had condemned 
in his various aUocntions, and other letters and speeches. 
Attached to each error in the list is a reference to the par- 
ticular paper in which the more full and specific condemna- 
tion may be found. The Syllabus was sent, at the du"ection 
of the Pope, by Antonelli, to all bishops, and the reason 
given for this proceeding in the accompanying letter was 
that these might not have seen aU of the documents of which 
the Syllabus is an abridgment. Mr. Gladstone considered 
the Syllabus an ex cathedra manifesto, and as such claiming 
to be infallible. This was a natural view, and one taken 
heretofore by many Catholic theologians. But this construc- 
tion of the Syllabus Dr. i^ewman denies. He ventures to 
attribute to it no more authority than pertained to the sev- 
eral papers that gave rise to it. Dr. Pessler, the late Secre- 
tary-General of the Yatican Council, cautiously takes a simi- 
lar ground. Is this judgment an afterthought, occasioned 
by the unpopularity of the Syllabus, and the inconveniences 
arising from the position that all of its propositions are in- 
fallible and of divine authority ? So Mr. Gladstone evi- 
dently thinks. Certainly it is a great advantage to be able 
to say of Papal utterances, ancient or recent, that they are 
not ex cathedra ; especially when the Pope himself is the fi- 



THE COUNCIL OF THE VATICAN. 135 

nal judge on the question. It is surely strange to find him 
who claims to be the Yicar of Christ sending a series of 
doctrinal propositions to every bishop in every quarter of the 
globe — ^propositions which he may himself hereafter recall 
and deny. That is to be considered ex cathedra teaching, ac- 
cording to the Vatican Council, when, " in discharge of the 
oJSice of pastor and doctor of all Christians by virtue of his 
supreme apostolic authority, he (the Pontiff) defines a doc- 
trine regarding faith or morals to be held by the universal 
church." What belongs " to faith and morals " it is for the 
Pope to judge. Under the circumstances, it was certainly 
pardonable for Mr. Gladstone to regard the Syllabus as the 
utterance of the infallible Oracle. 

2. There is a difference between Mr. Gladstone and his 
antagonists concerning the sense of the Syllabus. Both Dr. 
Xewman and Archbishop Manning labor to pare away the 
offensive parts of the Syllabus, and to reduce its denuncia- 
tions to a series of harmless commonplaces. For example, 
the rejection of the liberty of speech and of the press is con- 
verted into a condemnation of blasphemous, seditious, and 
obscene publications, which, it is asserted, all governments 
proscribe. Mr. Gladstone's answer to this interpretation is 
quite destructive. It is hardly probable that the Pope 
would take pains to put among the errors of the times a 
doctrine w^hich nobody holds. Moreover, it happens that 
Pius IX., as governor of his owm kingdom, illustrated his 
idea of the error in question, and that he denounced the 
Austrian laws on this subject, which no Protestant would 
consider to be over-liberal. Mr. Gladstone's indignation at 
this and other like attempts to rob the propositions of the 
Syllabus of their real intent and plain import is not mis- 
placed. 

3. Another point in the contest is the scope of the Vatican 
definition which gives to the Roman Pontiff a "power of 
jurisdiction" such as imposes upon his subjects " subordina- 
tion and true obedience " not only in matters belonging to 



136 THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE AND 

faith and morals, but also " in those that appertain to the 
discipline and government of the chnreh throughout the 
world." This vast prerogative of " regimen and discipline " 
makes the Pontiff, according to Mr. Gladstone, an absolute 
monarch. Disobedience to his mandates, whatever they may 
be, carries with it the perdition of the soul. In reply. Dr. 
JN'ewman affirms that " regimen and discipline " refer to the 
rites of worship and the internal affairs of the church. The 
supremacy of the Pope under this head is not absolute, or 
exercised with infallible authority, as Mr. Gladstone imag- 
ines. On the contrary, it is conceivable that the Pope should 
misjudge, or otherwise err, in his prescriptions to individu- 
als, and with respect to concrete cases. Moreover, it is a 
mistake of Mr. Gladstone — so Dr. I^ewman asserts — to hold 
that every act of disobedience to the Pope is accounted a 
mortal sin. The phraseology of the Decree is as follows : 
" This is the teaching of Catholic truth ( CatJioUcae veritatis 
doGtrina\ from which no one can deviate without loss of 
faith and of salvation." It is the rejection of the doctrine 
that the Pope is the supreme governor, not the single act of 
disobedience, against which the penalty is set. Dr. New- 
man is here technically right. But Mr. Gladstone perti- 
nently suggests that the Vatican creed says nothing about 
any exceptions to the duty of obedience. That such excep- 
tions may arise we can believe only on Dr. Newman's author- 
ity ; and this admission of so moderate and liberal a dispu- 
tant is liable at any time to be condemned at Rome ; in 
which case, Dr. Newman, on his own principles, would have 
to renounce his concession. 

4. The deposing power. Mr. Gladstone urges that the 
assumed right of the Pope to excommunicate and depose 
princes has never been given up. To this his opponents 
answer that the moral conditions of the exercise of this pre- 
rogative are absent, and that to exert it would, therefore, be 
wrong. Among these moral conditions. Dr. Newman, ex- 
plicitly, and Dr. Manning, more cautiously, include the con- 



THE COUNCIL OF THE VATICAN. 137 

sent of nations. Thej try to make it out that the European 
nations in former ages constituted the Pope an arbiter in 
their affairs, domestic and internationaL From this view of 
history Mr. Gladstone dissents. lie considers it a very ex- 
aggerated statement. The Papal government, in this par- 
ticular, always encountered sharp resistance as a usurpation. 
Besides, Queen Elizabeth was deposed, she being a Protes- 
tant. The lame defence of Archbishop Manning is that she 
was baptized a Catholic, which is not even true in fact. 
Moreover, this lofty prerogative is not renounced by the 
Pontiff, or by his disciples for him. It is only, to use Mons. 
Capel's phrase, " in abeyance." It may be revived at any 
time. Who can say that in the event of a war between ul- 
tramontanism and Germany, the Pope might not resort to 
the measure of absolving the Poman Catholic subjects of 
the emperor from their allegiance to him ? The Pope has 
claimed a dejure right to govern Protestants — Lutherans — 
as being baptized persons. There is nothing in the creed to 
forbid him to take the course in relation to William which 
his predecessor, Pius Y., took towards Queen Elizabeth. 

As to the question whether the power of the Pope over 
kings and princes is direct or indirect, Mr. Gladstone justly 
pronounces the distinction unimportant. Archbishop Man- 
ning holds that the Pope has not literally a temporal power 
in this relation, but that he can only reach sovereigns and 
governments indirectly, by his spiritual authority. But so 
long as he is competent to forbid rulers to make or execute 
laws which he does not approve ; so long as he claims the 
right to annul all such legislation, and to excommunicate its 
authors, as well as to prohibit their subjects from obeying 
them, what boots it whether this tremendous authority is 
called direct or indirect, spiritual or temporal ? 

5. The use of force for the suppression of heresy. Even 
Dr. Manning — ^we must style him '' Cardinal Manning " now 
— resents the imputation to the Pope and the church of a 
disposition to make use of physical coercion, as in the days 



138 THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE AND 

of rack and fagot. Yet he does not disavow the right to do 
so. He does not condemn the employment of these fierce 
weapons in past ages. He founds his disinclination on the 
altered circumstances of the times, and not on any deep 
principle of right. 

"We have no disposition to speak harshly of the Eoman 
Catholic Church or of its prominent apologists. "We must 
say, however, that it is impossible for an educated Protes- 
tant to read their defences, and note their fine distinctions 
and carefully-guarded concessions, and not feel that they are 
the champions of a flexible, evasive, slippery system, which 
is this to-day and that to-morrow, but which at all times 
pursues, with an unrelenting eye, an end which can be secured 
only by robbing men, just as Mr. Gladstone maintains, not 
only of their mental and moral liberty, but of their outward 
and political liberty as well. Dr. E'ewman compares the 
absolute control of the Pope to the authority exercised by a 
physician ; as if the subjection of a patient to his medical 
adviser were analogous to that of a subject of the Pope to 
the ruler at Rome. The cases might be analogous if the 
patient did not select his physician, and were not at liberty to 
dismiss him and take another whenever he chooses to do so. 

6. Mr. Gladstone alleges against the Papal Church of to- 
day " a breach with history," in two particulars. One of 
these has reference to the pledges of the Roman Catholic 
clergy of Great Britain, on the faith of which the Emanci-- 
pation Act and other liberal measures were conceded by the 
Parliament of Great Britain. It was then declared by the 
representatives of the Catholic Church that they did not 
hold the Pope to be infallible, and admitted no right on his 
part to interfere, " directly or indirectly," with the inde- 
pendence, sovereignty, laws, constitution, or government of 
the United Kingdom. If the Yatican decrees are accepted, 
says Mr. Gladstone, there is a retreat from these solemn en- 
gagements, a breach with history which is closely akin to a 
breach of faith. 



THE COUNCIL OF THE VATICAN. 139 

Again, whatever opinion niaj liave been clierished by in- 
dividuals or schools of opinion in the past in favor of ponti- 
fical infallibility, Gallicanism has been, from the days of the 
Council of Constance— not to speak of earlier times — a per- 
mitted and a powerful type of Catholicism. But Gallican- 
ism is now put under the ban. Mr. Gladstone exposes the 
misrepresentation of Manning, who, strangely enough, makes 
Gallicanism have its origin in 1682, in the contest of Louis 
Xiy. with the papacy. 

7. In answer to one of the main propositions of Arch- 
bishop Manning, that Catholics do not differ from Protes- 
tants on this matter of civil loyalty, since both acknowledge 
the higher law of conscience, and the possible occurrence of 
cases where allegiance to the moral law clashes with obedi- 
ence to the civil magistrate, Mr. Gladstone points out a 
marked and obvious distinction. The Protestant makes his 
own conscience supreme; he does not subject his conscience 
to the conscience and will of another, and that other a for- 
eign potentate. The state is not brought into peril by the 
doctrine of the authority of conscience, provided the indi- 
vidual acts for himself, but the state is endangered when a 
body of citizens substitute for their own consciences the will 
of a foreign ecclesiastic ; and this peril is not diminished by 
the circumstance that in making this surrender they suppose 
themselves to be impelled by the sense of right. The practi- 
cal fact is that there is erected an hTvperiwin in imjperio of 
a formidable kind. 

What is the significance of this controversy ? It indicates 
that the ecclesiastical conflict which disturbs the continent has 
crossed the channel and reached England. Ultramontanism, 
with its new dogma of Papal infallibility, with its rigid tenets 
respecting civil marriage and secular education, and its revived 
claim on behalf of the Pope to dehort the subjects of Chris- 
tian states from their obedience to obnoxious laws, inevita- 
bly clashes with the enlightened sentiment and established 
policy of the European nations. Ultramontanism is a reac- 



140 THE COUNCILS OF CONSTANCE AND THE VATICAN. 

tionary movement, an endeavor to arrest the progress of 
society in the direction of freedom and laical independence, 
and to bring mankind once more under the dominion of the 
priesthood. This controversy has political bearings of much 
consequence. The iiltramontanes do not give up the hope 
of breaking up the kingdom of Italy and of restoring his old 
principality to the Pope. In the event of an armed conflict 
on this point, they would hope to rally to their cause the 
sympathies of the whole Eoman Catholic population of 
Europe. Mr. Gladstone has not only sounded a note of 
alarm in Protestant ears, but he has forewarned his Roman 
Catholic counti-jmien of the possible use to which the Jesuit 
leaders may eventually wish to put tliem. 



THE POPE AND HOW HE IS CHOSEN. 141 



THE OFFICE OF THE POPE AND HOW HE IS 
CHOSEN, * 

The papacy has been stripped of the splendid preroga- 
tives which inhered in it in the middle ages, when Western 
Europe constituted a great and undivided ecclesiastical com- 
monwealth which acknowledged the Pope as its head ; when 
such was the force of his authority that his Interdict could 
suspend all the public services of religion in a nation, silenc- 
ing the bells upon the tower of every church and convent, 
and compelling the disconsolate to bury their dead without 
the soothing voice of prayer ; when the injunctions of the 
Sovereign Pontiff were heard with awe to the farthest 
limit of Christendom ; when monarchs were dethroned and 
kingdoms given away at his bidding. But, although the 
power of the Pope as regards political society is in abeyance, 
and notwithstanding the fact that he has endured the bitter 
humiliation of seeing his temporal principality wrested from 
him, and a secular ruler enthroned at his side in the Holy 
City itself, the spiritual authority of the Pope over many 
millions of devoted subjects still remains intact, and has 
even been augmented within the present generation. A 
vast multitude of Christians still look up to him as the guide 
of their consciences, and the highest earthly authority in the 
regulation of their conduct. His office is even now the most 
august on earth. Nor is there any prospect that it will soon 
pass out of being. As far as external perils are concerned, 
it is in less danger than it was fourteen hundred years ago, 

* Published in the iV". T. Examiner and Chronicle, January, 1878. 



142 THE OFFICE OF THE POPE 

wlien Leo tlie Great went forth fi'om Rome to the camp of 
Attila, and saved the city from pillage ; or twelve hundred 
3^ears ago, when Gregory III. and his successors besought 
the help of the Franks against the Lombard invaders, who 
had seized on the northern and central portions of Italy ; or 
eight hundred years ago, when Hildebrand was driven out 
of Rome by the troops of the Emperor Henry lY., and died 
in exile ; or three hundred and fifty years ago, when Clem- 
ent YIL was shut up in the Castle of St. Angelo by a 
Lutheran army under Roman Catholic leaders ; or even 
sixty-five years ago, when Pius YIL was the prisoner of 
Napoleon, and when the French Revolution had apparently 
weU-nigh dispelled all reverence for the papacy in the rul- 
ing classes of the nations nominally Catholic. The bark of 
St. Peter, the Pontiffs have been accustomed to assert, may 
be tossed upon the waves, but it does not go under ; and 
after a time the Master awakes, and the waves are stiUed. 
The great change which the papacy has undergone in modern 
times is in the loss of its infiuence in the political sphere. 
The growth of religious skepticism m Italy and France has 
made, to be sure, a serious inroad upon the spiritual domin- 
ion of the Pontifical See. The separation of the Teutonic 
nations at the Reformation was a staggering blow, yet it did 
not prove a fatal blow, to the Roman hierarchical suprem- 
acy. 

Pope is derived 'hompapa (in the Greek JTaTra?), signify- 
ing /<:i/A6r. As late as the fifth century, in the Western 
churches, all bishops were styled I^apce. Sidonius, who 
was made bishop of Clermont in 472, calls the bishops of 
Rheims, Aries, Lyons and other places by this title. Jer- 
ome, in his Epistle to Pammachius, styles Epiphanius, Bishop 
of Constantia in Cyprus, jPo2:)e y and this is not a solitary 
example, in his writings, of the same usage. The designa- 
tion came to be appropriated, in the Eastern church, to pa- 
triarchs and abbots, ecclesiastics of high rank. In the 
West, Pope gradually became the specific and exclusive ap- 



AND HOW HE IS CHOSEN. 143 

pellation of the Bishops of Rome, by a change in language 
similar to that which had taken place in the use of the terms 
"patriarch" and "bishop;" for, as is well known, "bish- 
op " and " presbyter," in the 'New Testament, are used in- 
discriminately for the same class of church officers. 

The nature of the Papal office is of more consequence 
than the name. The Roman Catholics hold that the Bishop 
of Rome is ex officio the inheritor of the primacy of St. 
Peter ; and as such, is the representative or vicar of Christ, 
the visible head of the visible church, the spiritual or in- 
visible head of which is Christ himself. As primate, the 
Pope is the high priest, the regent, and the doctor, or 
teacher, of the church Catholic, and of all persons, lay and 
ecclesiastical, of whatever rank, who are embraced in it. 
First, it is maintained that Christ gave to Peter this supreme 
pastoral superintendence and control over all his brethren. 
The passages of Scripture relied upon to sustain this propo- 
sition are chiefly these : " Thou art Peter, and upon this rock 
I will build my church " (Matt. 16 : 18) ; " I have prayed for 
thee, that thy faith fail not : and when thou art converted, 
strengthen thy brethren " (Luke 22 : 32) ; and " Feed my 
sheep " — the injunction thrice repeated (John 21 : 15 seq.). 
Secondly, it is held that, Peter being the founder and first 
bishop of the Church of Rome — this being properly his See 
Apostolic — the primacy, by a divine ordinance, descends in 
the line of the incumbents of this bishopric. The preroga- 
tives of Peter, which have been enumerated above, are 
transmitted to the persons duly elected to the episcopal 
office in the Roman Church. One of the gravest of the con- 
troverted questions in the past has been whether other 
bishops held the episcopal office directly from Christ or 
mediately through the Pope, as His vicar. It is the common 
view that none of them is the successor of any particular 
apostle. This distinction belongs exclusively to the Bishop 
of Rome, because the primacy devolves on him. But do 
they, or do they not receive the episcopate directly fi-om 



144 THE OFFICE OF THE POPE 

Christ? Those disposed to exalt the papacy have main- 
tained that in the Pope is centred and included apostolic and 
episcopal anthority, which is said to flow out from him to 
other bishops. But whatever diversity may have existed on 
this point, the doctrine has prevailed that the Pope is the 
centre of sacerdotal and ecclesiastical unity, so that without 
him the church is dissolved, and hence fellowship with him 
on the part of all Christian priests and people is indispensa- 
ble. The most liberal Galileans, as Gerson and D'Ailly, in 
the fifteenth century, the era of the Reforming Councils, dared 
not dispense with a Pope, or leave the office vacant. The 
church without a Pope was considered a body without a 
head. 

Another of the great controverted questions of the past 
has been whether an oecumenical council is an authority 
paramount to the Pope, and whether its enunciations of doc- 
trine are authoritative. That such is the fact was the theory 
of the Galileans, and this general view is assumed and 
affirmed by the Councils of Basle and Constance. In former 
times, the middle and moderate theory has had most cur- 
rency, which makes the concurrence of council and Pope 
necessary to the validity of a dogmatic definition. This was 
the doctrine of Hefele, and of most of the Catholic theolo- 
gians of Germany down to a recent date. The ultramon- 
tane tendencies of the day have been potent enough, under 
the auspices of the present Pontiff, to crush this opinion, 
and the Yatican Council has pronounced for the infallibility 
of the Pope, in the sense that no conciliar ratification of his 
dogmatic decrees is requisite. The sense of the Vatican de- 
finition, however, is often misunderstood and misstated. 
Of course, it is not meant that the Popes are impeccable. 
The Pope himself has a confessor, like the humblest of his 
flock. Boman Catholic writers do not hesitate to admit that 
there have been wicked Popes ; and Dante is far from being 
alone in remanding some of them to perdition. J"q.das be- 
trayed his Master, they say, and Peter denied him ; how 



AND HOW HE IS CHOSEN. 145 

can we expect that tlie successors of tlie apostles should be 
better than the apostles themselves ? Prophets in the Old 
Testament were sometimes cowardly and unfaithful. The 
Old Testament church passed through periods of darkness 
and corruption ; why not the church of the E^ew Covenant ? 
If the Vatican definition does not mean that the Popes are 
ex officio delivered from the moral infirmities of human 
nature, no more does it signify that all of their doctrinal ut- 
terances are necessarily void of error. But this is the im- 
port of the dogma, that the Pope, speaking ex cathedra^ or 
addressing the entire church upon any topic of religion or 
ethics, is preserved supernaturally from error. Speaking in 
this character, not to an individual or a class alone, but to 
the whole body of the faithful — not upon any subject, as 
politics, or philology, or medicine — but upon theological and 
ethical doctrine, he is infallible. This is, of course, a mo- 
mentous dogma, and a very grave addition to the articles of 
belief which loyal Catholics, on pain of perdition, are obliged 
to accept. That the church cannot err was the old belief. 
The Holy Spirit, it was held, abides perpetually in the 
visible body, over which the Latin hierarchy presides ; and, 
therefore, when the church collectively speaks, its utter- 
ances are free from error. The new dogma substitutes for 
the collected episcopate, with the Pope at their head, the 
Pope alone, who is thus declared to be the organ of the 
church and of the Spirit. 

Besides the teaching function of the Pope, he is endued 
with supreme legislative and judicial powers in the church. 
]^o ecclesiastic can be appointed against his will, and he can 
depose every ecclesiastic, from the highest to the lowest, by 
his bare authority. The promise of obedience to him is 
solemnly made by all ecclesiastics when they enter upon 
their offices. 

Protestants deny that the texts of Scripture to which we 
have referred are correctly interpreted by Roman Catholics. 
It is maintained by Protestants that the rock on which the 
7 



146 THE OFFICE OF THE POPE 

clinrcli was founded was not Peter personally, but Peter as 
confessing Christ, or the confession made bj the fervent 
apostle. Thev point to the fact that the anthoritj to remit 
sins was not conferred on Peter to the exclusion of the other 
disciples (Matt. 18 : 18), and that Christ breathed on the 
whole company of apostles, imparting to one as mnch as to an- 
other the gift of the Holy Ghost (John 20 : 22). They find 
no proof that, as a matter of fact, Peter governed the other 
apostles or the chm-ch, or that he exercised any more actual 
authority than the other apostles. They deny that he was 
bishop of the Roman Church. They deny that there is 
any evidence that his primacy, supposing that such a dis- 
tinction belonged to him, was handed down to subsequent 
bishops of that church. His precedence, if he had any, 
died with him. They deny, likewise, that the bishops of 
Rome in the first three centuries claimed for themselves, or 
exerted, the prerogatives which are ascribed by the Roman 
Catholic theory to Peter and to his successors. 

The historical difficulty here suggested has been met in 
two ways by Romish apologists. The more extreme school 
endeavor to achieve the very difficult task of proving that 
the early bishops of Rome were Popes in the later sense, 
and were acknowled2:ed as such bv the church. More 
plausible is the ground taken by theologians hke De Mais- 
tre and Mohler, who bring to their aid the theory of devel- 
opment. The papacy, they say, was founded by Christ, 
but it existed at first, like so many other features of Chris- 
tian polit}", doctrine, and life, in the germ. The idea — the 
divine idea — was gradually realized. The papacy grew up, 
but its growth was legitimate. It is the natural, norm^al, in- 
tended outcome of the seed planted by the hand of Christ. 
The precedence of Peter among the apostles, and the pre- 
cedence of Rome among cities and communities, were the 
divine preparations for an institution the foundations of 
which rest on the express ordinances of Christ, although 
the edifice arose only by degrees, and in the course of cen- 



AND HOW HE IS CHOSEN. 147 

tnries, to the full symmetry and splendor of its proportions. 
In answer to this hypothesis, Protestants have to say, first, 
that it allows that the papacy has no perfectly distinct war- 
rant in the ISTew Testament, and had no concrete existence 
in the primitive church ; and secondly, that the papacy 
arose historically through the introduction of the doctrine 
of the mediatorial priesthood, a doctrine which has no right- 
ful place in the Christian dispensation, but was a germ of 
development borrowed from Judaism. 

In the first centuries, the Bishop of Rome was chosen, like 
bishops elsewhere, by the suffrages of the clergy and laity of 
the church at Rome, with the cooperation of the neighbor- 
ing bishops ; and the traces of this primitive arrangement 
are even now not wholly obliterated. It is sometimes made 
a subject of complaint that the primate of the whole church 
should be created mainly by Italians ; but this objection, 
like various other objections, implies an ignorance or forget- 
fulness of the fact that it is as chief pastor of the Church 
of Rome that the Pope holds his dignity and prerogatives. 
It belongs to the Roman Church to create its own pastor. 
Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, gives some particulars respect- 
ing the choice of Cornelius (a.d. 251) to the Roman bish- 
opric. He says (Ep. 55) that Cornelius was made bishop 
" by the judgment of God and of his Christ " — that is, by a 
divine call — '' by the testimony of almost all the clergy, by 
the suffi-age of the people who were then present, and by the 
assembly of ancient priests and of good men." The impor- 
tance of the episcopal office in the metropolis led the Roman 
emperors to intermeddle in the selection of the person to 
fill it. This was done, also, to some extent, by the Gothic 
king, Theodoric (a.d. 493-526). After the downfall of the 
East Gothic kingdom in Italy, the Greek emperors (a.d. 
553-754) were still more disposed to put checks upon the 
unrestrained liberty of the Romans to make their own 
bishop. The ratification of the emperor at Constantinople, 



148 THE OFFICE OF TETE POPE 

either directly given, or throngli his viceroy, the Exarch at 
Ravenna, was necessary to the validity of an election. Jus- 
tinian (a.d. 553-565) was as arbitrary in his treatment of 
the Roman See, as in dealing with the Eastern patriarchs 
and bishops who were under the shadow of his throne. 
After the rescue of the papacy from the threatened supre- 
macy of the Lombards, by Charlemagne (a.d. 774), this 
monarch and his successors exercised the same sort of as- 
cendancy over the Pope that they were accustomed to exer- 
cise over the Frank bishops. The consent of the Frank ru- 
lers was requisite before a Pope-elect could begin to exercise 
his functions. In the anarchy that followed the ruin of 
Charlemagne's empire, a period extending to the middle of 
the eleventh centmy, the papacy succeeded, to be sm-e, in 
liberating itself, for a long time, fi'om this exterior control, 
but only to become a prey to violent domestic factions, 
which brought the papacy down to a lower depth of moral 
degradation than it has ever reached before or since. From 
this condition of helplessness and infamy, relieved onl}^ for 
brief intervals by the German Othos, it was delivered by the 
emperor, Henry III., who entered Italy at the head of an 
army, and at the Synod of Sutri, in 1046, deposed the rival 
incumbents of the sacred office, and himseK elevated three 
German bishops in succession to the Papal dignity. The 
Hildebrandian or reforming party, as long as the Italian 
factions were raging, were glad to avail themselves of im- 
perial help ; but they lost no time in seizing the first oppor- 
tunity that presented itself to shake off transalpine and secu- 
lar interference and control in the great matter of filling the 
chair of St. Peter. After the death of Henry III., and 
when Henry lY. was a child, Pope Nicholas 11. (in 1059), 
by a decree, devolved the prerogative of electing the Pope 
upon the cardinals. 

In the first centuries the term cardinal (from cardo, a 
hinge) might be applied to civil officers holding permanent 
stations under the Roman government. It was applied, 



AND HOW HE IS CHOSEN. 149 

also, to ecclesiastics having a permanent connection with a 
church. The clergy of the Roman churches, which all stand 
in close connection with the Lateran, the mother of churches, 
were termed' cardinals. The presbyters having charge of 
the parishes — at first twenty-five, then twenty-eight in num- 
ber — into which Rome was divided, and the deacons to 
whose care the poor in the ecclesiastical districts of the city 
— at first seven, then fourteen in number — were committed, 
were "cardinals" of the Lateran Church. In the eighth 
century, under Pope Stephen lY., the seven — now six — • 
suburbicarian bishops, or bishops in the ancient diocese of 
Rome, were added to this body of priests and deacons. The 
number of the college of cardinals, however, has varied from 
time to time. At one time, in the thirteenth century, it 
sank to seven. Pope Sixtus Y., in 1586, fixed the number 
at seventy, corresponding to the seventy elders of Israel. 
The college, however, is«seldom full. 

It will thus be seen that the College of Cardinals, whether 
they actually reside at Rome or not, by whom the Pope is 
elected, are clergy of the Roman Church. They comprise 
the suffragan bishops of the vicinity, with presbyters and 
deacons of the Church of Rome ; and so are divided into 
three classes, cardinal bishops, cardinal priests, and cardinal 
deacons. The fifty cardinal priests are designated by the 
names of fifty churches in Rome ; the fourteen cardinal 
deacons, by the fourteen deaconries. The cardinal bishops 
are of highest rank ; the cardinal priests and deacons are on 
a level ; but all are practically equal as regards the choice of 
a Pope. 

The constant policy of the Popes has been to keep oif 
outside interference, and especially to defend this electoral 
college from the undue influence or coercion of secular gov- 
ernments. They have sought to make its action independ- 
ent and final. Nicholas 11. , in the decree to which we have 
referred, and which forms an epoch in the history of the 
electoral system, recognized in very indefinite terms the im- 



150 THE OFFICE OF THE POPE 

perial pretensions. The cardinals — the cardinal bishops at 
that time taking precedence — were to take the initiative, and 
choose the Pope ; the next step was some indefinite consul- 
tation with the emperor ; while '' applause " of a choice al- 
ready concluded was the only prerogative left to the people 
of Eome. The Pope was to be selected from '' the bosom 
of the Poman Church," if it contained a fit person for, the 
place. Gregory XY., in 1621, laid down the rules for the 
organization of the conclave, and for its proceedings, which, 
with some modifications, have continued in force until the 
present time. 

The cardinals are appointed by the Pope. He is not 
obliged, however, to divulge the names of persons raised to 
this rank, at the time when they are appointed. When the 
names are temporarily withheld they are styled cardinals in 
petto, i. e., inpectore, or in the breast. That is to say, they 
are hidden in the Pope's breast. Eligibleness to the cardin- 
alate is attached to no definite age. In certain periods, as 
is well known, by an abuse of the power of appointment, 
persons in extreme youth have been raised to this ofiice. 
Leo X. was made cardinal at the age of fourteen, and in- 
vested with the purple three years later. Leo X. made 
Prince Alfred, of Portugal, cardinal when he was seven 
years old, stipulating, however, that he should not assume 
the dignity until seven years later. The qualifications ne- 
cessary in a cardinal are those requisite in a bishop. It is 
required that the candidate shall be a legitimate son. He 
must have been in orders for at least a year. He must have 
neither children nor grandchildren, and he must have no 
relative w^ithin the second degree of canonical kinship in 
the college before him. The cardinal-elect goes to the Vati- 
can, and according to an elaborate form, receives the purple 
cap. This may be sent to a cardinal residing abroad. At 
a public session of the whole body, the new member is cere- 
moniously received, and clothed with the red hat. Other 
curious forms, as that of closing and opening the mouth of 



AND HOW HE IS CHOSEN. 151 

the cardinal-elect by the Pope, attend his inauguration to his 
new dignity. 

The cardinals are princes, as well as ecclesiastics, since the 
right of electing the Pontiff vests in them. They are a kind 
of council, the business of the Papal administration being 
mainly distributed among them. The various congregations 
at Pome are composed of them, or are under their presiden- 
cy. But their principal distinction lies in the prerogative 
which belongs to them, of choosing the Pope, who, it is sup- 
posed, must be one of their own number. 

What a departure is all this from the primitive method 
of electing a pastor ! Clement of Pome, in his Epistle to 
the Corinthians, which was written in a.d. 96 or 97, says 
that the apostles put officers in the churches, and provided 
that their places, on becoming vacant, should be filled by 
approved men. The body of church members, in the case 
of a vacancy, decided who should be appointed, the remain- 
ing pastors giving their voice, but the power of acceptance 
and of veto being always exercised by the body of the con- 
gregation. This was the custom at Pome, as in other 
churches. In the room of this free action of the body of 
church-members, we have substituted a corporation of eccle- 
siastics, appointed by the chief pastor of the Poman Church, 
and filling his place with no action on the part of the Chris- 
tian laymen of Pome, except what is involved in shouting 
for the individual whose election by the conclave of car- 
dinals is announced to them. 

The institution known as the conclave originated in a tur- 
bulent period of the middle ages, when it was thought ex- 
pedient, in repeated instances, to catch the cardinals and 
shut them up, in order that they might be compelled to fill 
a vacancy in the Papal office. Clement lY. died in 1269, at 
Yiterbo. The strife between the French and the Italian 
factions among the cardinals prevented the choice of a suc- 
cessor for two years and nine months, the longest interreg- 



152 THE OFFICE OF THE POPE 

num that lias existed in the whole history of the papacy. 
During this interval, the citizens of Yiterbo, nnder the town 
captain, Ranieri Gatti, not only imprisoned the cardinals in 
a palace, but resorted to the bold expedient of unroofing the 
edifice and leaving their eminences to the mercy of the ele- 
ments, besides diminishing their supplies of food. It was 
not, however, mitil a year after this irreverent proceeding 
that an election was made. G-regory X., who was chosen, 
was moved, in consequence of these disorders, at the Gen- 
eral Council at Lyons, held in 1274, to establish fixed regula- 
tions for the proceedings in the case of the death of a Pope ; 
and he may be considered the founder of the conclave. 
His rules have been in various particulars modified by his 
successors. They are subject to modification at the will of 
the Pontiffs. At the same time, they still form the basis of 
the ecclesiastical law on the subject. 

When the Pope dies, the cardinals wait for ten days only 
for the absent members of their body to appear. No notifi- 
cations are sent out to absentees. They must come, if they 
come at all, of their own motion. At the end of this time, 
the cardinals are to enter into conclave in the palace where 
the Pope died. Each cardinal may now have two attend- 
ants, who are lodged in two of the three small sleeping apart- 
ments which, together with another little room, constitute 
his " cell." The old restrictions as to the supply of food 
are very much mitigated ; and communication with persons 
from outside is not absolutely prohibited, except during the 
time of actual' voting, though such communication is not al- 
lowed to be private. 'No other business is permitted in the 
conclave except what pertains to the election of a Pope, un- 
less measures have to be taken to defend his territory. Of 
course, this last proviso is now rendered obsolete. A vote 
of two-thirds is requisite for an election. Cardinals under 
ecclesiastical censure, or even under excommunication, can- 
not be excluded from taking part in the assembly. All 
bargains and prior agreements are solemnly prohibited ; and 



AND HOW HE IS CHOSEN. 153 

the electors are bound by stringent oaths to the observance 
of all the regulations which the church has prescribed for 
the performance of their function. 

On the death of a Pope, the Cardinal Camerlingo (Cham- 
berlain) is informed of it at once. He proceeds to the room 
where the dead Pope lies, and strikes his forehead thrice 
with a little hammer, addressing him, at the same time, by 
his original name. Peceiving no reply, he takes from his 
finger " the ring of the fisherman," and breaks it. On the 
tenth day, the cardinals enter into conclave in the chambers 
which have been set apart for this purpose in the Vatican — 
if the Pope dies in Pome — and which, in the interval, have 
been walled in, the doors and the windows, with the excep- 
tion of a narrow space at the top for the admission of light, 
being closed up with brick and mortar. Within the con- 
clave everything takes place by rule, under official supervi- 
sion. The Pope may be chosen in either of three ways. 
First, he may be elected by acclamation — also called "in- 
spiration," or " adoration " — when all the cardinals, gath- 
ered at the appointed time and place, with one voice desig- 
nate some individual for this office. Such a mode of elec- 
tion is of very rare occurrence. Secondly, he may be 
chosen by direct vote. In this case, as was said above, a 
candidate must have the suffrages of two-thirds of those who 
participate in the election. Each cardinal must swear that 
his ballot is cast for the one whom he deems most fit for the 
office. The greatest precautions are taken to prevent fraud. 
The ballot is secret ; the number and motto of each cardinal, 
however, being recorded on the ballot, which is folded and 
sealed so that this part of it is not seen, unless it becomes 
necessary to ascertain by whom the vote was cast. In case 
no candidate receives two-thirds of the ballots cast, any one 
who has received a single vote may, nevertheless, be chosen, 
if a sufficient number who have voted for other persons 
" accede," to constitute the two- thirds. This is a choice by 
" accession," and is not unfrequent. Thirdly, a Pope may 



154 THE OFFICE OF THE POPE 

be chosen by Gomjyromise. When it is found that the requi- 
site number of votes cannot be obtained by any one — in 
other words, when there is a " dead-lock " in the conclave — 
the business of selection may be delegated to a committee of 
the cardinals, by whose decision the rest are bound to abide. 
In this way, the impossibility of an agreement among the 
electors, and the calamities of a long interregnmn have, in 
noted instances, been avoided. 

Formerly, each of the great Catholic powers have had the 
pri\dlege of exercising the '• veto " upon any obnoxious can- 
didate for the papacy. But this could be used but once 
during the process of filling a vacancy by the conclave, and if 
used at all, was necessarily exerted before the decisive vote 
had been taken. In the present relation of the papacy to 
the Catholic powers, it is understood that the exercise of 
the veto, which is not considered by the Papal canonists as 
a right, will not be conceded. 

When the choice has been made, a window is opened, and 
the announcement of the result of the election is made to 
the throng of people without. The coronation of the Pope, 
who usually receives the tiara from the oldest cardinal dea- 
con, takes place on the next Simday or next festal day after 
his election. If a deacon, he must first be elevated to the 
priesthood and the episcopate. Durmg the procession in St. 
Peter's, as a part of the coronation ceremonies, a little tow 
is burned, to remind the Pontiff elect of the transitoriness of 
worldly glory. The enthronement follows the coronation. 
The Pope assumes another name on his induction into office. 
The first to do this was Octavianus, in a.d. 956, who adopted 
the name of John XII. It has been suggested by Koman 
Catholic writers even, that his motive was to cover up, as 
far as might be, the disgrace which his sins and crimes had 
brought on his former name. 

Yast results have sometimes turned on the action of the 
conclave. A single illustration may be given. In the sum- 
mer of 1197, Henry III., a powerful monarch, wore the im- 



AND HOW HE IS CHOSEN. 155 

perial crown. His antagonist in the papacy was an old man 
ninety years of age, Celestine HI. So unequally were the 
papacy and the empire matched. On the 28th of Septem- 
ber of that year, the Emperor Henry died. A few months 
later, on the 8th of January, 1198, Celestine also died. On 
the same day the conclave assembled. A number of votes 
were cast for one candidate and another ; but these candi- 
dates themselves united in proposing that Giovanni Lotario 
Conti should be the Pope, and he was forthwith chosen 
unanimously, taking the name of Innocent HI. This great- 
est of the Pontiffs was then in the vigor of life, being only 
thirty-seven years old. Frederic 11. , who eventually suc- 
ceeded to the empire, w^as at that time a child. In the Pa- 
pal chair was a sagacious and energetic statesman, thoi'oughly 
in earnest, and determined to carry the Papal prerogatives 
to the greatest height. On the other side, there was divi- 
sion and confusion. Such was the change in the posture of 
affairs which a few months wrouglit. 

Yet Innocent, like certain other great Pontiffs, was reluc- 
tant to take on him the burdens and responsibilities of the 
office. Gregory I. — Gregory the Great — when he learned 
of his election, hid himself. He held out in his refusal of 
the station allotted to him as long as he could. Gregory YII. 
consented, not without an inward struggle, to take the part 
of leader in the tremendous conflict with secular authority 
which the Papal office, in his judgment, imposed upon him. 
Like Calvin afterwards at Geneva, he knew what a struggle 
awaited him. If Hildebrand was ambitious, it was no vul- 
gar ambition that inspired him. Innocent II., as long as he 
was able, withstood the cardinals who were resolved to make 
him Pope ; and Eugene HI. had to be dragged out of his 
cell, and forced to assume the purple. If there have been 
ambitious intriguers who have aspired to this lofty distinc- 
tion, and have climbed to it by flagitious means, there have 
been others who have sincerely desired to shun so harassing 
and responsible a station. It is difficult to see how, in the 



156 THE OFFICE OF TPTE POPE 

present circumstances, any one who values his own ease and 
comfort can wish to grasp the sceptre which the present 
Pontiff must soon lay down. 

The pontificate of Pius IXo, who was elected Pope as the 
successor of Gregory XYI,, on the 16th of June, 1846, is 
drawing to a close. Yictor Emanuel is no more, and at 
the death of the present Pontiff, when it shall occur, the two 
most prominent actors in the drama of recent Italian history, 
so fraught with momentous events, will have passed off the 
stage. 

There are two principal eras in the long reign of Pius 
IX., and two principal sides to his activity. In the first 
place, he has played a conspicuous part in political affairs. 
The temporal principality which the Popes had held for a 
thousand years has been torn from his grasp. Italy has be- 
come a united kingdom under the house of Savoy, and Pome 
has become its capital. There are many who recall the start- 
ling impression made by the liberal measures of Pius IX., on 
his first accession to power, and the enthusiasm among the 
friends of Italian liberty which was kindled in those days of 
hope. The intolerable misgovernment in the Papal States 
imperatively required a radical change in the system of in- 
ternal administration, and Pius IX. undertook to organize a 
constitutional monarchy in which laymen should have a large 
share of power. The reduction of taxes, the liberation of 
political prisoners, the charters given to railway and tele- 
graph companies, the improvement of agricultm-e, the pat- 
ronage of education, the reform of ecclesiastical institu- 
tions, the relaxation of restraints upon the press, and other 
measures consonant in spirit with these, seemed to usher in 
an utterly new period of liberty and prosperity in the Po- 
man kingdom. But the Pope had still larger aims. Italy 
was groaning under the tyranny of Austria, and of the petty 
sovereigns who were under Austrian influence. That Italy 
should be emancipated from oppression, and combine into a 



AND HOW HE IS CHOSEN. 157 

confederation of wliicli tlie Pope should be the head — ^be- 
coming thus once more a nation among the nations — was an- 
other design which Pius IX. cherished, and which he hoped 
to realize. All these fair dreams and bright beginnings were 
shattered in pieces. The revolutions of 1848 were attended 
with consequences which the Pope had not foreseen. A tem- 
pest arose which he could neither quell nor control. On the 
one hand, there was Austria, which had endeavored to pre- 
vent his election to the papacj, which had done what it 
could to baffle his projects of reform and his concessions to 
liberalism, and which stood in mortal hostility to everything 
that could be called Italian liberty. On the other hand, 
there were the Radicals, the republicans of the Mazzini 
type, who demanded a democratic system, and were deter- 
mined to wrest all secular authority from ecclesiastics. The 
Pope found himself in a place where two currents met. 
The liberals were bent on driving him to a more advanced 
position than he was prepared to take up, and to involve him 
in an open war with Austria. The winds were let loose ; 

"Una Eurusqiie Notusque ruunt creberque procellis 
Africus, et vastos volvunt ad litora fluctus. " 

How a man of greater talents and sagacity might have suc- 
ceeded in preserving himself and his cause in such a storm, 
it is not for us to say. On the 24th of August he fled from 
Pome to Gaeta. The French occupation of Rome followed. 
Thenceforward, the idea of liberal and partly lay government 
for Rome was abandoned by the Pope. The success of 
France, in alliance with Sardinia, in the war with Austria, 
paved the way for the extension of the rule of Piedmont 
over all Italy. The Franco-German war disabled Napoleon 
III. from longer hindering the consummation of the move- 
ment which he had helped to initiate. The Papal States 
were absorbed in the Italian kingdom, and Victor Emanuel 
took possession of the Quirinal. 

The restoration of the Italian nationality under the auspices 



158 THi: OFPICE OF THE POPE 

of a limited monarchv and a native dynasty, is one of the 
most gratifying events wliicli have occmTed in onr time. 
The charm ^hich Italy mnst always possess for the histori- 
cal stndent is far from beuig the only sonrce of the interest 
which we cannot bnt feel in the fortnnes of this beautiful 
land. This charm is indeed great. What a part have Eome 
and Italy played for the last twenty-five centmies m the his- 
tory of mankind ! TThat a glory rests npon this buthplace 
and hearthstone of the civilization of "WesteiTi Eiu-ope, 
whence law. and literatnre. and cnltiu-e have flowed ont m a 
cpiichening stream npon so many nations of Christendom ! 
Bnt this interest derived fi'oni memorable ages of history 
Italy shares with other lands — especially with Greece and 
with Palestine. Athens and Jerusalem are cities which, in 
some relations, awaken a deeper feeling than Rome itself. 
But the Italy of to-day is full of a vigorous life. The 
Itahans are a highly intellectual people. Xo statesman of 
modern times has surpassed in ability, perhaps none has 
ecjualled in ability. Count Cavour. The public men of Italy 
are versed in political science and political economy. Xo- 
where else are there to be f oimd persons more competent to 
deal with great political and social problems. The reinstate- 
ment of Italy as a power among the nations is adapted to 
give the deepest satisfaction to thoughtful and good men. 
If it has not taken place in the way which the Pope would 
have chosen, if the loss of his temporalities has called out 
fi'om him bitter reproaches, still the uni fi cation of his coun- 
try is really one of the most beneficent events which signal- 
ize the annals of his pontificate. 

Xot less momentous have been the events of this pontificate 
within the spiritual sphere. In lS.5i Pitis IX. invited the 
Poman Catholic bishops in all the coimtries to resort to Pome, 
and with their suppoii; and consent, though without the decree 
of a coimcil, he promulgated the dogma of the Immaculate 
Conception of the Virgin [Mary. This act was contrary to 
the advice and judgment of many of the most discreet theo- 



AND HOW HE IS CHOSEN. 159 

logians and ecclesiastics of the Roman Catholic Church. It 
decided authoritatively a point of divinity on which theo- 
logical opinion from the days of Augustine had been di- 
vided. Great names in the past could be appealed to in 
opposition to the new definition. 'No doubt it was repug- 
nant to the previous opinions and wishes of multitudes from 
whom no public expression in opposition to it was heard. 
Moreover, it was the making of a dogma by the Pope's bare 
authority, with no concurrent action by the episcopate gath- 
ered in an oecumenical body. In this light it was seen to 
be a stretch of pontifical prerogatives of a highly portentous 
chai'acter. The infiuence of the Jesuit Society over the 
Papal mind was supposed to be further disclosed when, on 
the 8th of December, 1864, the celebrated Syllabus appeared, 
in which were condemned a long list of alleged errors, 
which appeared to include the liberty of the press, secular 
education, freedom of religious belief and worship, and 
various other characteristic elements of popular liberty and 
modern civilization. Whether the propositions of the Syl- 
labus were spoken ex cathedra, and addressed to the entire 
church, or not, is a question on which Pom an Catholic au- 
thorities are not agreed. Dr. Newman, in his controversy 
with Mr. Gladstone, maintained that they are not. Cer- 
tainly, the assumption that they are absolutely binding on 
the conscience of all Catholics seriously embarrasses the de- 
fence of the Poman Catholic system in all fi^ee countries. 
In 1869-YO, there followed the great ecclesiastical event of 
this pontificate, the Yatican Council, by which the infalli- 
bility of the Pope was decreed. Another question of the 
highest moment was then taken from the category of dis- 
puted and disputable beliefs, and a decision of it was incor- 
porated among the Articles of Faith. It is difficult to say 
how far these extraordinary measures, which have modified 
in important respects the Poman Catholic Church, and have 
set up new barriers in the way of compromise and union 
with opposing systems, emanated from the Pope's own 



160 THE POPE AND HOW HE IS CHOSEN. 

natural proclivities, and how far they were inspired by the 
peculiar influences by which he has been suiToimded. At 
the very moment when the temporal monarchy fell, and the 
Papal influence in the civil affau's of nations was at the 
lowest ebb, the spuitual monarchy was carried to the highest 
pitch of exaltation. The Roman Catholic Church has gen- 
erally acquiesced in this remarkable change. Men, like Bish- 
op Hefele, who had just before demonstrated the fallibility 
of Pope Honorius, accept the new deflnition. The Old 
Catholic movement was not without a political importance ; 
able and cultivated men were enlisted in it ; but apparently 
it has no strength in the mass of the Catholic population 
even in Germany. It has no deep root among the people. 
Pere Hyacinthe stands by himself, refusing to sanction the 
new dogma, and by an exercise of private judgment decid- 
ing that the action of the Yatican Comicil is destitute of 
oecumenical authority, at the same time that his dissatisfac- 
tion with the Protestant system of belief and worship keeps 
him from placing himself within the pale of any of the 
Protestant religious bodies. 



PROTESTANTISM, EOMANISM, AND MODEEN CIVILIZATION. 161 



THE RELATION OF PROTESTANTISM AND OF 
ROMANISM TO MODERN CIVILIZATION.* 

In this discussion I shall take " civilization " in the broad 
sense, and include under the term all that enters into the 
improvement of the individual and of society — all the ele- 
ments that unite to constitute an advanced stage of human 
progress. Whenever we contemplate the growth of civili- 
zation, we should not confine our attention to the organized 
institutions, political or ecclesiastical, which minister to the 
welfare of mankind, but should take into view, also, what- 
ever influences spring from the individual and contribute to 
his well-being. In other words, the term " civilization " in- 
cludes culture. The inventions and discoveries that lighten 
the burden of labor and conduce to material comfort, the 
safeguards of law, refined sentiments, literature, art, and sci- 
ence, the amenities of social intercourse — all that raises man 
above the rude and narrow life of the barbarian is embraced 
in this comprehensive term. In defining civilization, how- 
ever, it has been justly said that no nation can be considered 
highly civilized in which a small class is possessed of the 
benefits of scholarship, the charm of polished manners, and 
the conveniences and luxuries derived from wealth, at the 
same time that the bulk of the population are sunk in pov- 
erty and ignorance, perhaps degraded to a condition of serf- 
dom. Nor can that nation be deemed civilized, in the full 
idea of the word, where the fine arts flourish while agricul- 
ture and the mechanic arts are in a low state. Civilization 

* A Paper read at the meeting of the Evangelical Alliance in New York, 
October, 1873. 



163 THE RELATION OF PROTESTANTISM AND 

should involve sometliing like an impartial or proportionate 
development of the capacities of man and a fair distribution 
of social advantages. It should likewise carry within it the 
germ of further and indefinite progress. 

We are absolved from inquiring, in this place, what sort 
of a civilization could exist, and how long it were possible 
for civilization to continue, without any aid from religion. 
Whoever believes in the teachings of Christ needs no argu- 
ment to convince him that Christianity is essential to the en- 
during life of all that is excellent and noble in the products 
of human activity. " Ye are the salt of the earth." It is 
clear that Christianity, from the moment when it first 
gained a foothold in the Eoman Empire down to the pres- 
ent time, has never ceased to exert a profound influence up- 
on society. Of the several agencies which have chiefly con- 
spired to determine the course and the character of modem 
history, Christianity and the church are first in importance. 
Attribute whatever weight we may to the legacy that was 
transmitted from the nations of antiquity, or to the pecu- 
liar genius of their barbarian conquerors, every discerning 
student must allow to Christianity the predominant part in 
moulding the history of the European communities now on 
the stage of action. 

1^0 enlightened Protestant, in our day, will be inclined to 
disparage the wholesome influence which the Eoman Catho- 
lic Church may still exert in certain places and over certain 
classes of people. We are not disposed to undervalue the 
benefits which that church, in the middle ages, when it was 
the only organized form of Christianity in Western Europe, 
conferred on society. We are even quite willing to concede 
that the papacy itself, the centralized system of rule, which 
has been the fountain of incalculable evils, was providentially 
made productive of important advantages during the period 
when ignorance and brute force prevailed, and when anarchy 
and violence constituted the main peril to which civilization 
was exposed. Let us thankfully acknowledge the debt that 



OF EOMANISM TO MODERN CIVILIZATION. 163 

is due to the mediaeval church for preserving from utter de- 
struction the remains of ancient literature and art, for train- 
ing the minds of undisciplined men, and imparting to them 
what knowledge had outlived the wreck of ancient power 
and culture, and for curbing the passions and softening the 
manners of rude peoples. Christianity in the mediseval 
church existed in a corrupt form, but its life was not extinct, 
and it operated as a leaven, according to the promise of its 
Author- Our attention is to be directed to more recent 
times. We have to compare the influence of Romanism 
with that of Protestantism, as that influence is seen in the 
course of the last three centuries, and as it is deducible from 
the nature of the respective systems. 

There is one point of contrast between the two systems 
which deserves to be placed in the foreground of our inquiry. 
The Roman Catholic system is the rule of society by a sacer- 
dotal class. This is a fundamental characteristic of that 
system. The guidance of the conscience of individuals, and 
of the policy of nations, so far as their policy may be thought 
to touch the province of morals and religion, is relegated to 
a body of priests, or, according to the recent Vatican Coun- 
cil, to their head. The authority to decide upon the ques- 
tions of highest moment resides in this body of ecclesiastics. 
It is not, indeed, like those hereditary priesthoods which are 
separated by an impassible barrier from other orders of men, 
and which are found, as an established aristocracy, in certain 
oriental religions. J^Tevertheless, it is a limited class, ad- 
mitting to its ranks none whom it chooses to exclude, and 
assuming the exalted prerogative of pronouncing infallibly 
upon questions of truth and duty, and of conveying or with- 
holdino; the blessinars of salvation. Protestantism denied 
this prerogative. It broke down the wall of separation be- 
tween priest and layman. It accorded to the laity the full 
right to determine for themselves those questions over which 
the clergy had claimed an exclusive jurisdiction. It declared 
that the heavenly good offered in the Gospel is accessible to 



164 THE RELATION OF PROTESTANTISM AND 

the Immblest soul, without the intervention of a mediatorial 
priesthood. The emancipation of the laity from clerical rule 
is one of the prime characteristics of the Reformation. 

1. Protestantism, as compared with the opposite system, 
sets free and stimulates the energy, intellectual and moral, 
of the individual, and thus augments the forces of which 
civilization is the product. The progress of civilization, in 
the long course of history, is marked by the growing respect 
paid to the rights of the individual, and the ampler room 
afforded for the unfolding of his powers, and for the realiz- 
ing of his aspirations. There was something imposing in 
those huge despotisms — Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia — 
in which a multitude of human beings were welded together 
under an absolute master. Such empires were an advance 
upon a primitive state of things, where every man's hand 
was against his neighbor. Yet they were a crude form of 
crystallization ; and they were intrinsically weak. The little 
cities of Greece, with their freer political life, and the larger 
scope which they allowed for the activity and the culture of 
the individual — comnmnities of citizens — proved more than 
a match for the colossal might of the East. Among the 
Greeks and Romans, however, although governments of law 
had supplanted naked force, the state was supreme, and to 
the state the individual must yield an exclusive allegiance. 
It was a great gain when the Christian church arose, and 
when the individual became conscious of an allegiance of the 
soul to a higher kingdom — an allegiance which did not sup- 
ersede his loyalty to the civil authority, but limited while it 
sanctioned this obligation. But the church itself at length 
erected a supremacy over the individual, inconsistent with 
the free action of reason and conscience, and even stretched 
that supremacy so far as to dwarf and overshadow civil so- 
ciety. It reared a theocracy, and subjected everything to its 
unlimited sway. The Reformation gave back to the indi- 
vidual his proper autonomy. The result is a self-respect, an 
intellectual activity, a development of inventive capacity, 



OF KOMANISM TO MODERN CIYILIZATION. 165 

and of energy of character, wliicli give rise to such achieve- 
ments in science, in the field of political action, and in every 
work where self-reliance and personal force are called for, as 
would be impossible under the opposite system. In the 
period immediately following the Reformation, signal proofs 
were afforded of this truth. The little States of Holland, 
for example, prov^ed their ability to cope with the Spanish 
Empire, to gain their independence, and to acquire an opu- 
lence and a culture wdiich recalled the best days of the 
Grecian republics. They beat back their invaders from their 
soil, and sent forth their victorious navies upon every sea, 
while at home they were educating the common people, 
fostering science and learning, and building up universities 
famous throughout Europe. England, in the age of Eliza- 
beth, proved that the native vigor of her people was re-en- 
forced in a remarkable degree by the stimulus derived from 
the peculiar genius of the Protestant religion. It w^as the 
period when she was acquiring her naval ascendancy ; the 
period, likewise, of Shakspeare, Bacon, and Raleigh. "Who 
can doubt that the United States of America are — not in- 
deed w^holly, but in great part — indebted to their position, 
as contrasted with that of Mexico and the political communi- 
ties of South America, to this expansion of the power of 
the individual, which is the uniform and legitimate fruit of 
Protestant principles ? 

2. The spirit of Protestantism favors universal education. 
The lay Christian, who is to read and interpret the Scrip- 
tures, and to take part in the administration of government 
in the church, must not be an illiterate person. Knowledge, 
mental enlightenment, under the Protestant system, are in- 
dispensable. The weight of personal responsibility for the 
culture of his intellectual and spiritual nature, which rests 
on every individual, makes education a matter of universal 
concern. Far more has been done in Protestant than in 
Roman Catholic countries for the instruction of the whole 
people. It is enough to refer to the common-school system 



166 THE RELATIOX OF PEOTESTANTISM A2sD 

of Holland, and of Xew England, and to Protestant Ger- 
many, to show how natural it is for the disciples of the 
Reformation to provide for this great interest of society. 

The free circulation of the Bible in Protestant lands has 
disseminated an instrument of intellectual, as well as of re- 
ligious, improvement, the good effect of which is immeasura- 
ble. As a repository of history, biography, poetry, ethics, as 
well as a monitor to the conscience and a guide to heaven, 
the Bible has exerted an mfluence on the common mind, in 
all Protestant nations, which it would be difficult to exag- 
gerate. The practice of interpreting the Bible and of ex- 
plormg its pages for fresh truth affords a mental discipline 
of a very high order. How often have the Scriptm-es car- 
ried into the cottage of the peasant a breadth and refinement 
of intellect which otherwise would never have existed, and 
which no agency employed by the Poman Catholic system, 
in relation to the same social class, has ever been able to 
engender I 

3. That Protestantism should be more friendly to civil 
and rehgious liberty than the Roman Catholic system would 
seem to follow unavoidably fi'om the nature of the two 
forms of faith. Protestantism involves, as a vital element, 
an assertion of personal rights with respect to religion, the 
highest concern of man. Moreover, Protestantism casts off 
the yoke of priestly rule, and puts ecclesiastical government, 
in due measure, into the hands of the laity. As we have 
already said, it is a revolt of the laity against a usurped 
ecclesiastical authority. 

The Church of Rome teaches men that their first and 
most binding duty is to bow with unquestioning docility and ^ 
obedience to their Heaven-appointed superiors. How is it 
possible that Protestantism should not foster a habit of mind 
which is incompatible with a patient endurance of tyranny 
at the hands of the civil power ? How can Protestantism, 
inspiring a lively sense of personal rights, fail to bring with 
it, eventually at least, a corresponding respect for the rights 



OF KOMANISM TO MODEKN CIVILIZATION. 167 

of others, and a disposition to secure tlieir rights in forms of 
government and in legislation ? How can men v^ho are ac- 
customed to judge for themselves and act independently in 
church affairs manifest a slavish spirit in the political 
sphere? On the contrary, the habit of mind which the 
Roman Catholic nurture tends to beget leads to servility in 
the subject toward the ruler, as long as an alliance is kept 
up between sovereign and priest. It is true that the Church 
of Rome can accommodate itself to any of the various types 
of political society. Her doctors have at times preached an 
extreme theory of popular rights and of the sovereignty of 
the people. While the state is subordinate to the church, 
any form of government may be tolerated ; and there may 
be an interest on the part of the priesthood in inculcating 
political theories which operate, in their judgment, to weaken 
the obligations of loyalty toward the civil magistrate, and to 
exalt, by contrast, the divine authority of the church. When 
the civil magistracy presumes to exercise prerogatives, or to 
ordain measures, which are deemed hurtful to the ecclesias- 
tical interest, a radical doctrine of revolution, even a doctrine 
of tyrannicide, has been heard from the pulpits of the most 
conservative of religious bodies. 

Generally speaking, however, the Church of Rome is the 
natural ally and supporter of arbitrary principles of govern- 
ment. The prevailing sentiment, the instinctive feeling, in 
that church, is that the body of the people are incapable of 
self -guidance, and that to give them the reins in civil affairs 
would unperil the stability of ecclesiastical control. To this 
reasoning it is often replied by advocates of the Roman 
Catholic system that Protestantism opens a door to bound- 
less tjo-anny by leaving the temporal power without any check 
from the ecclesiastical. The state, it is said, proves omni- 
potent ; the civil magistrate is delivered from the whole- 
some dread of ecclesiastical censure, and is left free to exer- 
cise all kinds of tyranny, without the powerful restraint to 
which he was subject under the mediaeval system. He may 



168 THE RELATION OF PROTESTANTISM AND 

even violate tlie rights of conscience with impunity. The 
state, it is sometimes said, when released from its subordi- 
nate relation to the church, is a godless institution. It be- 
comes, like the pagan states of antiquity, absolute in the 
province of religion as in secular affairs, and an irresistible 
engine of oppression. It must be admitted that Protestant 
rulers have been guilty of tyranny ; that, in many instances, 
they cannot be cleared of the charge of unwarrantably inter- 
fering with the rights of conscience, and of attempting to gov- 
ern the belief and regulate the forms of worship of their sub- 
jects, in a manner destructive of true liberty. The question 
is, whether these instances of misgovernment are the proper 
fruit of the Protestant spirit, or something at variance with it, 
and therefore an evil of a temporary and exceptional character. 

The imputation that the state as constituted under Prot- 
estantism is heathen depends on the false assumption that 
the church, and the priesthood as established in the Poman 
Catholic system, are identical, or so nearly identical that one 
cannot subsist without the other. It is assumed that when 
the supervision and control which the Church of Pome as- 
pires to exercise over the civil authority is shaken off, noth- 
ing is left but an unchristian or antichristian institution. 
The fact that a layman can be as good a Christian as a priest 
is overlooked. The Christian laity who make up a common- 
wealth, and the Christian magistrates who are set over 
them, are quite as able to discern, and quite as likely to re- 
spect personal rights, and to act for the common weal, as if 
they were subject to an organized priesthood. 

Since the Pef ormation, a layman has been the head of the 
English Church and State, and civil magistrates in England 
have borne a part in ecclesiastical government. Without 
entering into the question of the righteousness or expediency 
of establishments, or broaching any of the controverted 
topics connected with this subject, we simply assert here 
that the civil government of England is not to be branded 
as unchristian or antichristian on account of this arrange- 



OF KOMANISM TO MODERN CIVILIZATION. 169 

ment. As far as the administration of public affairs in that 
country has been characterized by justice and by a regard 
for the well-being of all orders of people, the government 
has been Christian — as truly Christian, to say the least, as if 
the supremacy had been virtually lodged with the Pope, or 
with an aristocracy of priests. 

History verifies the proposition that Protestantism is fav- 
orable to, civil and religious freedom, and thus promotes the 
attainment of the multiplied advantages which freedom 
brings in its train. The long and successful struggle for in- 
dependence in the Netherlands, the conflict which estab- 
lished English liberty against the despotic influence of the 
House of Stuart, the growth and establishment of the Re- 
public of the United States, are events so intimately con- 
nected with Protestantism and so dependent upon it, that 
we may point to them as monuments of the true spirit and 
tendency of the reformed religion. That religious persecu- 
tion has darkened the annals of the Protestant faith, and 
that the earliest leaders in the Reformation failed to recog- 
nize distinctly the principle of liberty of conscience, must be 
admitted. But Protestantism, as is claimed, at the present 
day, both by its friends and foes, was illogical, inconsistent 
with its own genius and principles, whenever it attempted 
to coerce conscience by punishing religious dissent with the 
sword and the fagot. Protestants illustrate the real charac- 
ter and tendency of their system by deploring whatever acts 
of religious persecution the predecessors who bore their 
name were guilty of, and by the open and sincere advocacy 
of religious liberty. Liberty of thought, and freedom of 
speech and of the press, however restricted they may have 
been by Protestants in times past, it is the tendency of 
Protestantism to uphold. It is more and more recognized 
that freedom in the investigation of truth, and in the publi- 
cation of opinions, is required by the true principles of the 
Reformation. 

On the other hand, the dogma of persecution has never 



170 THE RELATION OF PROTESTANTISM AND 

been autlioritativelj disavowed by the Chm-cL. of Rome. 
Who has ever done penance for St. Bartholomew's day and 
the bm-nmg of Huss ? Even at present this hateful dogma 
is boldly professed by the organs of the nltramontane party, 
which is now in the ascendant. It is difficult to see how 
these doctrines can be given up by a chm^ch which attributes 
to every one of the long line of Pontiffs infallibility on ques- 
tions of morals. In recent times the doctrine of " liberty of 
conscience " and of worship has been branded by Pius IX., 
in an address to all bishops — branded, therefore, ex cathedra 
— as an error to be abhorred and to be shunned as the con- 
tagion of a pestilence. The recent dogma of the Council of 
the Vatican involves a formidable attack upon civil hberty. 
This new article of belief subjects all civil legislation to the 
moral criticism of the Pope of Rome, and binds every mem- 
ber of the Roman Catholic Chnrch, whether ruler or sub- 
ject, to submit to his decision. Xo limit is set to the power 
of the priest to intermeddle with the governments that ac- 
knowledge his jm^isdiction. 

4. Protestantism has bestowed a great boon upon civili- 
zation in supplanting the ascetic type of religion. Christi- 
anity came not to destroy, but to fulfill. It was not to su- 
persede any one of the normal activities, or to proscribe any 
of the legitimate products of human exertion. It was to 
mingle in the earthly pursuits of mankind, a renovating and 
purifying influence. Family life, letters, art, science, amuse- 
ment, trade, and commerce were to suffer no blight, but 
were rather to experience a quickening and, at the same 
time, an elevating power from contact with the Gospel. 
Christ bade his followers not to retreat from the world, but 
to stay in it and transform it. The kingdom of God on 
earth was to draw within it all that is pure and admirable 
in the infinitely diversified works and achievements of the 
natural man. It was not to be a ghostly realm of devotees, 
but a society of men and women, not indifferent to the labors 
and pleasures that pertain to this life, but infusing into aU 



OF KOMANISM TO MODERN CIVILIZATION. 171 

tilings a spirit of religions consecration. The ascetic type of 
religion interposes a gulf between religion and the business 
of the world, between things natural and supernatural. The 
creation of a separate priesthood, who are cat off from 
family life and from the ordinary relations of society, exem- 
plifies the ascetic tendency, which appears more or less dis- 
tinctly throughout the Roman Catholic system. The effect 
of the compulsory rule of celibacy is to attach a stigma to 
the institution of marriage and to the domestic relations. 
These relations are held to involve an inferior condition of 
sanctity. Apart from all the other evils which are connected 
with the law of celibacy, it strikes a blow at the sacredness 
of an institution on which the interests of civilization essen- 
tially depend. But the ascetic spirit, the unauthorized di- 
vorce of things sacred and secular, penetrates much further. 

It is a remarkable fact in history that the rise of com- 
merce helped to undermine the authority of the clergy, and 
was one of the potent instruments in educating the Euro- 
pean mind for the revolt of Protestantism. Commerce, it 
is true, produced a keenness and sagacity of intellect, and 
led to an activity of social movement and intercoui'se, which 
tended to break the yoke of superstition. Municipalities of 
busy merchants soon began to chafe under the sway of ec- 
clesiastics. Independently, however, of these peculiar ef- 
fects of trade, there w^as a secret but growing consciousness 
that great industrial enterprises and secular activity do not 
find any link of connection with the ascetic type of religion. 
They may get from it a bare toleration, but they must look 
elsewhere for a sanction and a baptism. 

5. The Protestant religion keeps alive in the nations that 
adopt it the spirit of progress. There may exist a high de- 
gree of civilization in certain respects, but a civilization 
which has ceased to expand through forces inherent in itself. 
China is an example. There may be a richer and more 
complex development which yet culminates, and, thence- 
forward, either remains stationary, or, which is more likely 



172 THE EELATION OF PROTESTANTISM AND 

to occur, becomes degenerate and goes backward. The civi- 
lization of the ancient Roman empire is a signal case of 
such an arrest of progress and of such a decadence. The 
spirit of progress, the fresh and unexhausted energy and 
hopefulness, with the consequent rapid growth in material 
and intellectual achievements which distinguish the Protes- 
tant nations, are due, not to characteristics of race alone, 
nor to incidental advantages of any kind, but, in a great de- 
gree, to their religion. There is a disposition to look for- 
ward as well as backward, to expect a future greater than 
the past, and to believe in the practicableness of carrying 
improvement to heights heretofore unattained. France is 
a prosperous and highly civilized nation ; but of all coun- 
tries nominally Roman Catholic, France is the one in which 
the Church of Rome has had the feeblest sway, and the one 
most alive to the influences which Protestantism and the 
Protestant civilization of other European nations have set in 
motion. The effect of the reactionary Catholicism that fol- 
lowed the Reformation upon the nations of Southern Eu- 
rope was deadening. In the decay of the Renaissance, 
music, painting, and poetry revived, in the ferment of relig- 
ious enthusiasm excited by the Catholic reaction ; but the 
intellectual vigor of Italy and Spain beneath the iron tread 
of the Inquisition was soon crushed. The history of these 
naturally gifted peoples, subjected to the stifling atmosphere 
of ecclesiastical tjrsumj, is a convincing illustration of the 
fatal effect of such a system. The present aspect of South 
America and Mexico, when compared with the American 
communities which have been reared on Protestant founda- 
tions, impressively exhibits the same thing. 

Poman Catholic polemics maintain that Protestantism is 
responsible for the skepticism and unbelief that prevail so 
extensively among Christian nations. They assert that there 
has arisen in the wake of Protestantism a spirit of irrelig- 
ion which threatens to subvert the social fabric. The causes 



OF ROMANISM TO MODERN CIVILIZATION. 173 

of this evil, however, do not lie at the door of Protestant- 
ism. The free inquiry that had developed in Europe in 
connection with the revival of learning could not be smoth- 
ered by mere authority. The earnest religious feeling which 
the Reformation at the outset brought with it counteracted 
the tendencies to unbelief, for a time, at least ; and it was 
only when Protestantism departed from its own principles, 
and acted upon the maxims of its adversary, at the same time 
losing the warmth of religious life so conspicuous at the be- 
ginning, that infidelity had a free course. The ideas which 
Plutarch long ago embodied in his treatise on superstition 
and unbelief are well founded. They are two extremes, 
each of which begets the other. E'ot only may the artificial 
faith which leads to superstitious practices, and drives its 
devotees to fanaticism, at length spend its force, and move 
the same devotees to cast off the restraints of religion ; but 
the spectacle of superstition, also, repels more sober and 
courageous minds from all faith and worship. Such has 
been the notorious effect of the superstitious ceremonies and 
austerities of the Roman Catholic system, both in the age 
of the Renaissance and in our own day. Religion comes to 
be identified, in the opinions of men, with tenets and ob- 
servances which are repugnant to reason and common sense ; 
and hence truth and error are thrown overboard at once. 

Disgusted with the follies which pass under the name of 
religion, and attract the reverence of the ignorant, men 
make shipwreck of faith altogether. The same baleful in- 
fluence ensues upon the attempt to stretch the principle of 
authority beyond the due limit. It is like the effect of ex- 
cessive restraint in the family. A revolt is the consequence 
wherever there is a failure to repress mental activity and to 
enslave the will. The subjugation of the intelligence which 
the Roman Catholic system carries with it as an essential 
ingredient compels a mutiny which is very likely not to stop 
with the rejection of usurped authority. There is a general 
source of unbelief wiiich is independent of the influence of 



174: THE EELATION OF PROTESTANTISM AND 

any particular form of religion. Rationalism lias been cor- 
rectly described as the fruit of the understanding stepping 
beyond its sphere, and supplanting the normal action of 
the moral and religious nature. It is due to a one-sided, 
exclusive, and narrow activity of a single function of the 
intellect, at the expense of conscience and the intuitive 
power. 

Such, for example, was the character of that skepticism 
which the Sophists encouraged, and which Socrates, appeal- 
ing directly to the immediate, ineradicable convictions of 
the soul, did so much to overthrow. When the free and ac- 
countable nature of the soul, and the aspirations and presenti- 
ments, as profound as they are natural, of the spirit of man, 
are flippantly set aside to make room for something called 
" science," which is conA'erted by its votaries into a fetich, 
infidelity is the ine^dtable consequence. There is nothing 
in Protestant principles, rightly understood, to warrant or 
to induce such a procedure. Looking at the matter histori- 
cally, we find that, in tlie age prior to the Reformation, un- 
belief was most rife in Italy, the ancient centre of the Ro- 
man Catholic hierarchy. In recent times, skepticism is no- 
where more prevalent than among the higher, cultivated 
classes in Roman Catholic countries, where the doctrines of 
that religion have been perpetually taught, and where its 
ritual has been celebrated with most pomp. 

To the relation of Protestantism and Romanism to spe- 
cial evils that afilict our modern civilization, it is hardly 
possible within the space given to this Paper to allude. War 
is still a terrible scourge of nations. It is obvious that the 
power of the Church of Rome, as an organized body, to 
avert war, even between countries owning its authority, 
amounts to nothing. It has been reserved for two English- 
speaking nations, professing the Protestant faith, to furnish, 
as they have lately done, an impressive proof of what may 
be accomplished by the peaceful method of arbitration. 
The church of old favored the emancipation of slaves ; but 



OF ROMANISM TO MODERN CIVILIZATION. 175 

slavery was abolished in tlie United States with little or no 
help from the ecclesiastics of the Roman Chnrch. 

In the disposition to minister to poverty and to the va- 
rions forms of physical distress, Eoman Catholics, be it said 
to their honor, vie with Protestant Christians. But this 
may be claimed for Protestantism, that its disciples are 
more zealous to devise the means of prevention, to explore 
these great evils to their sources, and then to apply radical and 
permanent remedies. Political economy and social science, 
although still immature, flourish chiefly under the auspices of 
Protestant Christianity. There are questions, of which the 
" labor question," as it is called, is one of the most promi- 
nent, with which neither church can be said to have fully 
grappled. But Protestantism has a better promise of con- 
tributing to the solution of these grave and portentous prob- 
lems than the opposite system ; for the laborer has no real 
quarrel with the Protestant religion. The hostility of the 
laboring class to a priestly system may take the form of a 
hatred to religion itself ; but better teaching and a true 
spirit of philanthropy may give them the needed light. 

The Roman Catholic Church is at present engaged in the 
hopeless struggle to uphold in the midst of modern society 
the religious ideas and customs of the middle ages. A 
dictatorial attitude toward the civil authority, the manage- 
ment of education by ecclesiastics, an appeal to the senses 
by a gorgeous ritual, an exorbitant demand upon the cred- 
ulity of mankind by unverified miracles and prodigies, an 
attempt to revive pilgrimages and other obsolete or obsoles- 
cent superstitions, an increased devotion to the Yirgin Mary, 
which borders on idolatry — such are some of the character- 
istics of this movement. It is the endeavor to reinstate or 
maintain a type of civilization on which history has pro- 
nounced a final verdict. 



176 THE KKLATION OF THE CHUKCH OF EI^GLAND 



THE RELATION OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 
TO THE OTHER PROTESTANT CHURCHES.* 

Ceetatnt events connected with the recent conference of 
the Evangelical Alliance in this coiintrv have brought up 
anew for discussion the attitude of the Church of Eno^and, 
at present and in the past, towards the other Protestant 
churches. It is well known that there is now, and long has 
been, a party in the Episcopal Chui'ch, who have refused to 
hold communion with other Protestant bodies, for the rea- 
son that these discard the episcopal polity, and that their 
ministers are not ordained by bishops. This party, which 
goes by the name of the High Chm*ch, is composed of two 
subdivisions. The one class is made up of those who carry 
their views of doctrine and their notions of worship to the 
verge of Romanism, and look with more or less yearning 
towards the Greek and Latin churches, whose doctrine of 
transubstantiation is regarded with less aversion than is felt 
towards the prevailing opinions of Protestants respecting 
the sacrament. The other class are hostile to Rome, and to 
the ritualism that copies her ceremonies, but maintain the 
exclusive sanctity of episcopal ordination, and, therefore, 
stand aloof fi'om the other churches of the Reformation. 
The Church of England, with its offshoots and branches, is, 
in their system, the one true chm^ch, with which alone it is 
lawful to have ecclesiastical communion. All other chm^ches 
are shut out of ecclesiastical fellowship, either as being non- 
episcopal, or, like Rome, as being corrupt. 

Xow there is a class of wi'iters of the High Church party 

* An Article in The New-Englander for January, 1874. 



TO THE OTIIEE PROTESTANT CHURCHES. 177 

who seek to convey the impression, sometimes by direct as- 
sertion, and sometimes by more indirect means, that the 
Chnrcli of England, in the first century after the Heforma- 
tion, or in the period prior to Laud and to the act of uni- 
formity under Charles II., professed the theories which they 
now profess, and stood in the isolated and exclusive position 
in which their party, since the middle of the seventeenth 
century have striven to hold her. We do not mean to im- 
pute this flagrant perversion of historical truth to all writers 
of the High Church school. There are candid scholars 
among them, like Keble, who discern and acknowledge facts, 
even when they militate against a party interest. Much 
less do we charge this kind of misrepresentation upon the 
writers of the Episcopal Church generally. Historical stu- 
dents who pursue these investigations without being warped 
by theological prejudice, are generally well agreed on the 
facts of the Euglish Reformation. Hallam, Macaulay, and 
the other standard historians, state with substantial correct- 
ness the transformations '^ -lich took place between the time 
of Cranmer and the eras of Laud and Sheldon. Authors 
who are strongly averse to Puritanism, and warmly attached 
to the episcopal side in the controversy between Churchman 
and Puritan, but who are too honest to be misled, or to mis- 
lead their readers, through partisan feeling, are equally com- 
mendable. The following passage from Lathbury's History 
of English Episcojpacy^ the work of a writer of this stamp, 
will illustrate our remark, and, at the same time, present 
some of the facts, which we shall establish in the course of 
this Article : — 

"The Eng-lish Eeformers did not contend for any system of govern- 
ment or discipline in the church, as being jwre divino ; things indifferent, 
as ceremonies and clerical habits, were left to the civil magistrates. Nor 
did thpy refuse to recognize the validity of ordination in those foreign 
churches that had renounced episcopacy. " ' ' The question of church 
government was vehemently agitated at this period [the reign of Eliza- 
beth]. The Reformers were agreed that no precise form was laid down 
in the New Testament ; but when the Puritans became divided into two 



178 THE RELATION OF THE CHUECH OF ENGLAND 

parties, the Presbyterian party advocated the divine right of their sys- 
tem. Cranmer and all the Reformers asserted that the form of govern- 
ment was left to the civil magistrate to determine, according to times 
and circumstances. The prelates of this reign njaintained the same views ; 
but like the earlier Reformers, they considered episcopacy, as retained 
in the English Church, to have been the apostolic practice. They did not, 
however, consider any mode of government essential to the constitution 
of the church ; hence the validity of ordination as exercised in those re- 
formed churches where episcopacy was not retained, was admitted. By 
an act passed in the thirteenth year of this reign, the ordinations of for- 
eign reformed churches were declared valid, and their ministers were ca- 
pable of enjoying preferment on receiving a license from the bishop.* 
Many who had received ordination abroad were allowed to exercise their 
ministry in the Church of England, provided they conformed. Travers, 
Whittingham, Cartwright, and many others had received no other, and 
their ordination was never questioned, f At a subsequent period this 
practice was denounced ; and in 1662, it was ordered that no minister 
should exercise his ofBce in the Church of England who had not received 
episcopal ordination. It appears that the Reformers did not contend for 
the superiority of the office of bishop as a distinct order from the priest- 
hood, but as different only in degree. Nor did any member of the Church of 
England claim this distinction, till the year 1588, when Bancroft, in his 
celebrated sermon at Paul's Cross, asserted it." "Laud's notions on the 
subject of church government were at variance with those adopted by many 
of his predecessors, who, until the time of Bancroft, never claimed a divine 
right for the government of the English Church ; and even Bancroft ad- 
mitted the validity of Presbyterian ordination ; for when it was suggested 
in 1610, that the Scotch bishops elect should be ordained presbyters, he 
opposed on the ground that ordination by presbyters was valid." t 

We quote the passages, not because we approve every 
sentence, but as, on the whole, a just exhibition of the facts, 
and as showing how a fair-minded churchman, who is, also, 
a thorough student, is capable of writing. 

The following extract is from a writer of another type of 
theology and of church man ship, but an accomplished his- 
torical scholar. Dean Stanley : — 

" Whether from policy or necessity, the whole settlement of modern 
Scottish Episcopacy was far more Presbyterian, far less Episcopal and 

* Strype's Annals, 524. 

f [That is, until the new spirit, described in the next sentence, arose.] 

X Lathbury, History of the English Episcopacy^ pp. 19, 63, 170. 



TO THE OTHER PROTESTANT CHURCHES. 179 

Catholic, than in any country in Europe. Doubtless this was partly oc- 
casioned by the fact, that in England itself the sentiment toward Presby- 
terian churches was far more generous and comprehensive in the century 
that followed the Reformation than it was in that which followed the 
Kestoration. The English Articles are so expressed as to include the re- 
recognition of Presbyterian ministers. The first English Act of Unifor- 
mity was passed with the expressed view of securing their services to 
the English Church. The first English Reformers, and the statesmen of 
Elizabeth, would have been astonished at any claim of exclusive sanc- 
tity for the Episcopal order." * " It was not Knox, but Andrew Melville, 
who introduced into Scotland the divine right of Presbytery, the sister- 
dogma of the divine right of Episcopacy, which Bancroft and Laud intro- 
duced into England." " It is this [the Church of Scotland] for which 
every English churchman is asked to pray, by the canons of the English 
Convocation, which enjoins that prayers are to be offered up ' for Christ's 
Holy Catholic Church, that is, for the whole congregation of Christians 
dispersed throughout the whole world, especially for the Churches of 
England, Scotland, and Ireland.' 'There can be no doubt,' says the can- 
did and accurate annalist of Scottish Episcopacy, ' that the framers of 
this have meant to acknowledge the northern ecclesiastical establishment 
at that time Presbyterian, as a Christian Church.' "f " Tiie very first 
declaration which the sovereign makes — taking precedence even of the 
recognition of the rights and liberties of the English Church and nation, 
which are postponed till the day of the coronation — is that in which, on 
the day of the accession, the sovereign declares that he or she will main- 
tain inviolate and intact the Church of Scotland." " In the Act of Union 
itself, which prescribes this declaration, the same securities are through- 
out exacted for the Church of Scotland as were exacted for the Church of 
England ; and it is on record that, when that act was passed, and some 
questions arose amongst the peers as to the propriety of so complete a 
recognition of the Presbyterian Church, the then primate of all England, 
the ' old rock,' as he was called, Archbishop Tenison, rose, and said with 
a weight which carried all objections before it, 'the narrow notions of all 
churches have been their ruin. I believe that the Church of Scotland 
though not so perfect as ours, is as true a Protestant church as the 
Church of England.' "t 



* See this well drawn out in Lord Macaulay's correspoiidence with the 
Bishop of Exeter ; and in Principal Tulloch's Article on the English and 
Scottish Churches, in the Contemporary Revieio, December, 1871. 

f See the discussions of the canons of 1603, in Grub [Ecd. Hist, of Scot- 
land], ii., 282. 

X Carstairs' State Papers, 739, 760. [Stanley's Lectures on the Eistoi^y 
of the Church of Scotland, pp. 47, 66, 67. (Am. ed.)] 



180 THE RELATION OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 

The drift of the representations of secular historians of 
the highest credit, maj be learned from the following pas- 
sage from Hallam, himself a churchman, and an authority 
of the first rank upon questions of legal and constitutional 
history : — 

' ' The system pursued by Bancroft and his imitators, Bishops Neyle and 
Laud, with the approbation of the king, far opposed to the healing coun- 
sels of Burleigh and Bacon, was just such as low-born and little-minded 
men, raised to power by fortune's, caprice, are ever found to pursue." 
' ' They began by preaching the divine right, as it is called, or absolute 
indispensability, of episcopacy ; a doctrine of which the first traces, as I 
apprehend, are found about the end of Elizabeth's reign. They insisted 
on the necessity of episcopal succession regularly derived from the apos- 
tles. They drew an inference from this tenet, that ordinations by pres- 
byters were in all cases null ; and as this affected all the Reformed churches 
in Europe except their own, the Lutherans not having preserved the suc- 
cession of their bishops, while the Calvinists had altogether abolished 
that order, they began to speak of them, not as brethren of the same 
faith, united, in the same cause, and distinguished only by differences 
little more material than those of political commonwealths (which had 
been the language of the Church of England ever since the Reformation), 
but as aliens to whom they were not at all related, and schismatics with 
whom they held no communion ; nay, as wanting the very essence of a 
Christian society." In the foot-note, Hallam adds that ""it is evident, 
by some passages in Strype, attentively considered, that natives regularly 
ordained abroad, in the Presbyterian churches, were admitted to hold pre- 
ferment in England ; the first bishop who objected to them seems to have 
been Aylmer. Instances, however, of foreigners holding preferment 
without any reordination may be found down to the civil wars." — Annals 
of the Reformation, ii., 523, and Appendix, 116; Life of Qrindal, 271 ; 
Collier, ii., 594; Neal, i., 258.* 

Since the late meeting of the Evangelical Alliance, Bishop 
Cummins, in a letter to the JSfeiv York Tribune, referred to 
the fact that Presbyterian ministers, m the period following 
the Eeformation, had been admitted to parishes in England 
without reordinatioit ; and he referred, among his authori- 
ties, to Prof. Fisher's work on the Eeformation. The state- 
ment was denied by the Kev. Dr. Drumm, in communi- 

* Const. History (Harpers' Am. ed.), p. 226. 



TO THE OTHER PROTESTANT CHURCHES. 181 

cations to the same journal. Prof. Fisher published two 
letters in the Tribune in proof of the assertion ; and these 
letters we propose to transfer to our pages, partly for the 
purpose of giving them a more permanent form, and partly 
in order to illustrate their contents by further proofs and 
observations, such as could not well find place in the colunms 
of a daily newspaper. As several topics belonging to the 
same general subject are handled in these letters, and will 
be considered in the pages which follow, we set forth dis- 
tinctly the main propositions, which we conceive to be as 
capable of being established as any facts in the ecclesiastical 
history of England : 

1. The first and second generation of English Reformers, 
Cranmer and his associates. Jewel and his contemporaries, 
did not hold the jure divino, or exclusive, theory of episco- 
pacy. 

2. The Church of England, in the sixteenth century, was 
in full communion with the other Protestant churches of 
Europe. 

3. The greatest divines in the Church of England in the 
seventeenth century agreed with Hooker in acknowledging 
the validity of Presbyterian ordination, and in the recogni- 
tion of the foreign Protestant churches. This was true of 
Ussher, Hall, and Stillingfleet, and of others of hardly less 
distinction. 

4. The fellowship with the foreign churches on the part 
of the Eno:lish Reformers w^as not owiup* to forbearance in 
them, but to the common opinion that each nation, or 
church, could shape its own polity, and that episcopacy 
might be adopted of rejected as each church or nation 
should see fit to determine. 

5. Notwithstanding the changes in the Prayer-Book and 
in the law of England, at the Restoration, the Church of 
England has never, by law or synodal action, discredited the 
validity of the ordination practiced in other Protestant 
bodies. 



182 THE RELATION OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAOT) 

We print below tlie first letter, in the form in wMcli it 
was published in the Tribune^ but with the addition of a few 
marginal notes. 

Sir : In two communications which have lately appeared in your jour- 
nal, I am mentioned among writers who have stated that, for a consider- 
able period after the Reformation, persons who had only received non- 
episcopal ordination were admitted to parishes in the English Church, no 
objection being made to the validity of their orders. As the correctness 
of this assertion is directly impugned by the Rev. Dr. Drumm, and as the 
question is a historical one of some interest, and a question, too, that 
need not provoke sectarian asperity, I beg leave to offer a vindication of 
the truth of the statement which your correspondent has called in ques- 
tion. 

The statement is usually made as one illustration of the fact that the 
founders of the Anglican Church in the reigns of Henry VIII. , Edward 
VI., and Elizabeth — Cranmer and his associates, Jewel and the Eliza- 
bethan bishops and divines of his time— did not hold to the jure divino 
theory of episcopacy. That is to say, they did not consider bishops, 
meaning a class elevated above presbyters, essential to the existence of a 
church, and they did not regard Episcopal ordination as indispensable to 
the exercise of the functions and prerogatives of the Christian ministry. 
On the contrary, they looked upon the Protestant ministers on the Con- 
tinent in the Lutheran Church, and in the Reformed Churches in Switzer- 
land, France, and Holland, as on a perfect equality with themselves with 
regard to clerical rights and qualifications. Differences arose among the 
Protestant churches on the subject of the Eucharist, but as to contro- 
versy about episcopacy, in that age there was none. When Cranmer 
called eminent divines from the churches on the Continent to help him 
compose the formularies of the Anglican Church, and to train the minis- 
ters of England at Oxford and Cambridge, this was not an exceptional act, 
but in keeping with his avowed principles and constant practice. No one 
who is acquainted with Cranmer' s opinions, can suppose that the circum- 
stance that Martyr and Bucer had once taken orders in the Roman Church 
had a feather's weight in determining him to invite them to England, 
any more than a like fact influenced him in the case of John Knox, who 
was made Chaplain-in-ordinary to Edward VI., was commissioned for sev- 
eral years as a preacher in the north of England, was offered the parish 
of All-Hallows in London, and finally a bishopric. Fagius, who was the 
companion of Bucer and Martyr, had been a minister in Germany, made 
such, of course, without Episcopal consecration ; and it is not true that 
he was called merely to teach the Hebrew language at Cambridge, as a 
Jew might teach. He was to expound the Old Testament, beginning 
with the prophet Isaiah, and he was welcomed from the beginning by 



TO THE OTHER PROTESTANT CHURCHES. 183 

Cranmer as an intimate counsellor and friend. That Fagius, a minister 
of high standing in Grermany, would have accepted such an appointment 
from those who denied his right to exercise the ministry, is something 
quite incredible. Cranmer went so far as to declare, in a written docu- 
ment, in 1540, that no consecration of bishops or priests is necessary, 
"•for election or appointment thereto is sufficient." (Burnet, I., ii., Col- 
lection of Records, iii. , 21. ) That Cranmer referred to ordination, and not 
to institution merely, is made perfectly clear by the same document. 
The voluminous correspondence of the eminent English divines and re- 
formers, which has been published principally from the archives of Zu- 
rich, must convince every candid person who examines it, that no sus- 
picion of a want of validity in the orders of the Helvetic ministers, whose 
advice they so frequently sought, and whose hospitality they enjoyed, 
ever entered their minds. No man who has read, for example, the nu- 
merous letters of Bishop Cox, a warm defender of the English liturgy 
against the Puritans, to Gualter, the son-in-law of Zwingle — his "beloved 
E-odolph," as Cox styles him — will have the effrontery to affirm that the 
English bishop looked on his Swiss friend and adviser as one who had no 
right to exercise the functions of the ministry. In the last days of Ed- 
ward VI. , Cranmer was corresponding with Calvin, Bullinger, and Melanch- 
thon, in order to bring together a general synod of the Protestants, where 
a platform of doctrine might be made, in which their disagreement re- 
specting the Lord's Supper — the only serious point of difference — might 
be adjusted. There is no trace of the exclusive, or jure dimno^ theory 
of episcopacy, in the writings of Cranmer, Parker, Crindal, and TV hit- 
gift, the first four Protestant archbishops of Canterbury. Whether Ban- 
croft broached it in his sermon at Paul's Cross, is still a controverted 
point. Hallam maintains that he did not. That this theory, which, in 
its logical consequences, would "unchurch" the other Protestant relig- 
ious bodies, and discredit the orders of their ministry, does not appear 
until about the time of Hooker, is granted by Keble in the elaborate es- 
say prefixed to his edition of Hooker's writings. It certainly sounds 
strange to hear Keble, all whose prepossessions were on the side of the 
High Church doctrine, charged with error for conceding what, if the evi- 
dence in the case had not required, he would surely have been very loth 
to admit,- But Keble had carefully and thoroughly explored the histori- 
cal question, as his essay abundantly shows. 

The opinion of Protestants of the English Church in the sixteenth cen- 
tury on this subject was closely connected with two other facts which de- 
serve special attention. The first was the prevailing doctrine at that time 
that bishops do not constitute a distinct order in the ministry, but that 
bishops and presbyters are different grades of the saine office. This was 
a common view in the Roman Catholic Church in the middle ages, since 
an ecclesiastical arrangement was thought to have the force of an institu- 
tio divina. The mii-acle of the Eucharist being the highest act which the 



184 THE RELATION OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 

clerg'yman could perform, and this being open to the priest, it was plausi- 
bly argTied that there can be no order of ministers above him. This 
ground was taken, even by a Pope, Urban II. , and is sanctioned by the 
most orthodox of the schoolmen. Those who are curious to see the proofs 
of this statement may be referred to Gieseler's Church History (Am. ed. , 
i. , p. 91, n.). The same fact respecting the medieeval opinion is proved 
in a work which has always been held in high honor by Episcopalians, 
Field's Treatise on the (Jliureh (b. iii. , p. 39).* Cranmer subscribes to 
this old opinion of the original and essential identity of the office of bishop 
and that of presbyter. He held that "in the New Testament there is no 
mention made of any degrees or distinctions in orders, but only of deacons 
or ministers, and of priests or bishops." Thirteen bishops, with a great 
number of other ecclesiastics, subscribed to this proposition. See Bur- 
net's Collection of Records^ II., i. iii., 21.) Bishop Jewel, one of the great 
lights of the English Reformation, in his celebrated "Defence" of the 
Church of England, and in his " Apology," took no other ground. He 
falls back on the doctrine that " bishops are greater than presbyters by 
order and custom of the church, and not by the truth of God's ordi- 
nance." (Jewel's Writings^ Parker Soc. ed., 1., p. 379.) f This is the 

* "These being the divers sorts and kinds of ecclesiastical power, it 
will easily appear unto all that enter into the due consideration thereof, 
that the power of ecclesiastical or sacred order, that is, the power and 
authority to intermeddle with things pertaining to the service of God, 
and to perform eminent acts of gracious efficiency, tending to the procur- 
ing of the eternal good of the sons of men, is equal and the same in all 
those whom we call presbyters, that is, fatherly guides of God's church 
and people : and that only for order's sake and the preservation of peace 
there is a limitation of the use and exercise of the same." Dean Field 
states that the Romanists themselves concede this, and adds: " Whereby 
it is most evident that that wherein a bishop excelieth a presbyter, is not 
a distinct power of order, but an eminency and dignity only, specially 
yielded to one above all the rest of the same rank, for order's sake, and to 
preserve the unity and peace of the church." That Dean Field is here 
stating his own opinion is made perfectly evident by the context. See, 
also, b. v., c. 27, where the same doctrine is laid down. 

f "St. Hierome saith generally of all bishops: noverint .Episcopi se 
magis consuetudine^ g^uam disposltlonis dominicm 'oeritate, presbyteris esse 
majores : ' let bishops understand that they be greater than the priests 
by order and custom (of the church), and not by the truth of God's ordi- 
nance.' If Christ, as St. Hierome saith, appointed not one priest above 
another, how then is it likely he appointed one priest to be, as M. Hard- 
ing saith, prince and ruler over all priests throughout the whole world ? " 
In another place, Jewel says: " Is it so horrible an heresy as he [Hard- 



TO THE OTHER PROTESTANT CHURCHES. 185 

explicit doctrine of Dean Field, in the passage to which I have just re- 
ferred. 

The second circumstance which it is important to notice, is the preva- 
lent belief in the system of national churches, and the adoption by many, 
of the Erastian theory of the supremacy of the civil magistrate in eccle- 
siastical affairs. The first Reformers in England were of this mind, and 
the English Reformation was effected under this theory. Calvin opposed 
it, and fought out the battle at Geneva in behalf of the right of the 
church, by its own organs, to excommunicate unworthy members. Cal- 
vinists generally resisted the Erastian doctrine in its extreme form ; yet 
they conceded to the magistrates of each country a large measure of 
power in matters of religion. The bishops of Elizabeth found it very 
hard, however, to yield up to their imperious sovereign that extent of 
control which she demanded ; as the suspension of Archbishop Grindal 
and many other events of like character illustrate. The main point here 
is that the Anglican divines paid a great respect to national churches and 
to the right of each country to frame its own church institutions, and to 
order its own church affairs. 



ing] maketh it, to say that by the Scriptures of God a bishop and a priest 
are all one." Then Jewel proceeds to quote Chrysostom, Jerome, and 
other fathers in support of the doctrine that they are the same. P. iii., 
p. 439 {Defence of the A^jology). Thomas Becon, chaplain to Cranmer, 
and Prebendary of Canterbury, writes, in his Cabechism : '■''Father. — 
What difference is there between a bishop and a spiritual minister ? Son. 
— None at all : their office is one, their authority and power is one. And, 
therefore, St. Paul calleth the spiritual ministers sometime bishops, some- 
time elders, sometime pastors, sometime teachers, etc." The same doc- 
trine is in The Institution of a Christian Man., published by autliority 
in 1537. Pilkington, the first Protestant bishop of Durham, writes in 
1561 : '' The privileges and superiorities which bishops have aVjove other 
ministers, are rather granted by man for maintaining of better order and 
quietness in commonwealths, than commanded by God in his Word. Min- 
isters have better knowledge and utterance some than other, but their 
ministry is of equal dignity." (Pilkington's Works, Parker Soc. ed., p. 
493.) The same doctrine is taught by Fulke, Master of Pembroke Col- 
lege. In Blunt's Annotated Prayer-Book, the notes to which are from 
the High Church point of view, it is said : "It was not until the close of 
the sixteenth century that the distinction between the orders of bishops 
and priests was asserted. On Feb. 9, 1589, Dr. Bancroft, in a sermon, 
maintained the superiority of bishops ;wr<3 c^^«^no ; the doctrine was com- 
pletely acknowledged during the primacy of Laud, and enforced by Bishop 
Hall in a well-known treatise on the subject " (p. 566). Of- Bishop Hall's 
qualified form of the jz^rc ditino doctrine, we shall speak hereafter. 



186 THE EELATIOX OF THE CHUECH OF ENGLAND 

The conflict- with the Puritans, which began with the accession of Eliza- 
beth, had become stern and bitter in the time of Wbitgift. But this in- 
flexible enemy of Puritanism never calls in question the validity of the 
method of ordination prevailing m the churches abroad. He conducts 
his whole controversy with Cartwright, the Presbyterian champion, with- 
out any assertion of the jure dimno doctrine of episcopacy. Field, the 
celebrated Dean of Gloucester, the warm friend of Hooker, also, as we 
have said, defends the foreign churches, and maintains the sufficiency of 
their orders. Whether Hooker himself holds that the right to establish 
or abolish episcopacy is included in that broad legislative jurisdiction 
which he attributes to the church, is a question of interpretation on 
which opinion is divided. In settling this question much depends on our 
judgment respecting the integrity of the last three books of his treatise. 
This is certain, however, that he recognized the validity of the ordina- 
tion of the ministers of the Reformed churches on the Continent. He 
finds in their circumstances an excuse for their practice. Hooker never 
questioned, or thought of questioning, the right of a Huguenot or a Ger- 
man minister to dispense the sacraments. 

There was nothing, then, in the principles of the Church of England, 
in the period of which we are speaking, that was incompatible with the 
granting of a parish to a minister ordained through presbyters alone. 
That is, there was no difficulty from any supposed defect in his ordina- 
tion. The statute of the thirteenth of Elizabeth was a part of her coer- 
cive measures for securing uniformity. It required all ministers who 
had been ordained by any other method than that prescribed under 
Edward YI., to present themselves before the bishop, and give their ap- 
proval of the Articles of Pteligion. The terms of the act cover the case 
of Roman Catholic priests, and also the case of Protestant ministers 
who might have been ordained abroad, whether in Scotland, or on the 
Continent, during the period of exile in the preceding reign. That the 
law was designed to refer to this second class, as well as to the other, has 
been affirmed by English historians and theologians of every party. 
Strype says that they were " undoubtedly " meant. It is now denied by 
your correspondent that such cases ever existed. He sets aside the au- 
thority of Hallam, who deliberately affirms that " instances of foreigners 
holding preferment without any reordination may be found down to the 
civil wars." {Const, ^^st, Hai-per's Am. ed. , p. 226.) To contradict 
Hallam on a matter of this sort one should be very sure of his ground. 
Your correspondent dismisses Macaulay in an equally summaiy manner, 
as one "full of party prejudice.'" Macaulay is a somewhat rhetorical 
writer : and in the multitude of details which crowd his history, a few 
errors have been detected. But no man was more familiar with the 
times of which he wrote, and he is not an inaccurate author. Your cor- 
respondent likewise dismisses Bishop Burnet with a disparagement which 
I believe to be scarcely less unjust. Even Strype, he thinks, is not to be 



TO THE OTHER PROTESTANT CTirECHES. 187 

trusted. But here come Bishop Fleetwood and Bishop Cosin.* Both 
are witnesses of unimpeached veracity. Bishop Cosin has personally 
known of individuals who had taken English parishes with only Presbyte- 
rian orders, and knew of many other cases before his time. This would 
strike one as conclusive testimony. But as Bishop Cosin did not specify 
the cases, his declaration is not to be accepted ! Fleetwood was born 
sixteen years after 1641, the latest date at which instances of this sort 
could have occurred, and therefore he is not to be believed ! As if per- 
sons who took parishes before 1041 might not have lived long enough for 
Fleetwood to know them ; and as if a man cannot get credible informa- 
tion respecting anything prior to his birth ! It would be instructive to 
see what would become, on such principles of reasoning, of accepted ar- 
guments from what Irenaeus and other fathers say of the constitution of 
the church before their time. 

These witnesses, then, to whom your correspondent alludes, fully es- 
tablish the fact which he seeks to disprove. But there are other proofs, 
equally if not more decisive. Lord Bacon probably wrote his Adver- 
tisement concerning Controversies of the Church of England^ in 1589. In 
the course of this tract he adverts to the gradual sharpening of the an- 
tagonism between the two contestants, the Puritan and the Churchman. 
He says that stiff defenders of episcopacy were beginning to condemn 
their opponents as a " sect." "Yea," he adds, " and some indiscreet 
persons have been bold in open preaching to use dishonorable and deroga- 
tive speech and censure of the churches abroad ; and that so far as some 
of our men, as I have heard, ordained in foreign parts, have been pro- 
nounced to be no lawful ministers. Thus we see the beginnings were 
modest, but the extremes were violent, so as there is almost as great a dis- 



* Fleetwood became a bishop in 1708. He says : " During the reigns 
of King James and King Charles I., and to the year 1661, we had many 
ministers from Scotland, from France, and the Low Countries, who were 
ordained by presbyters only, and not bishops, and they were instituted 
into benefices with cure .... and yet were never reordained, but only 
subscribed the Articles." Bishop Cosin says of the ministers of the 
French Keformed Church, that in the event of " their receiving a 
public charge or cure of souls among us (as I have known some of them 
to have so done of late, and can instance in many others before my time) 
our bishops did not ordain them." "Nor," he adds, "did our laws re- 
quire more of such ministers than to declare their public consent to the 
religion received amongst us, and to subscribe the Articles established." 
(Letter to Mr. Cord el.) Bishop Cosin, a leader of the High Church party, 
was born in 1594. He retired to France during the civil war, and at the 
restoration was made a bishop. Bishop Hall's perfectly decisive testi- 
mony we present on a later page. 



18 S T^T. EELATI027 OP 1^3 CHrECK OF E^^GLA^-D 

tance of eirlier side from itself as was at the first of one from the other." 
TMs he accounts for on the ground that the partisans of the High Chnrch 
side had become ''exasperate throngii contentions." I cannot imagine 
liovr this piece of evidence can be iaTalidatei unless, indeed, it should 
be said that Lord Bacon did not mention names ! There were ministers 
— " our men," ther are called — ministers in the English Church, who had 
not been episcopallv consecrated, and. hence, were denounced as haYing 
no right to exercise the ministiy. 

The cases of Whittingham and Travers, to which your correspondent 
appeals, so far from tending, when thej are fairly stated, to supx>ort his 
position, strongly tend to OTerthrow it. Whittingham had written a pre- 
face TO Goodman's book agsinst the government of women, which was a 
companion piece to Knox's famous Blast of the Trumpet, on the same 
theme. * He was opposed to the imposition of the vestments, and wrote 
against it. On the 19ta of July, 1562, he had been made Dean of Dur- 
ham. There was a Mnd of standing conflict between h i m and Sandys, 
Archbishop of York, his Metropolitan. The Archbishop at length at- 
tempted to depose him by denying that he had ever been ordained. A 
Corn-mission of Inquiry was appointed, which came to no result. In 1578, 
a second comiaission was appoiated. The Dean, who was powerfully 
supported, died before the affair was terminated or a decision reached. 
It is true, as your correspondent states, that he claimed to have been or- 
dained at G^eneva, according to the method of the Seformed Church 
there. But there is another most material fact which your correspondent 
leaves out. This statement of Whittingham was denied by Sandjs, who 
claimed that he had not been thus ordained, but had been ordained by a 
few lay persons in a private house. The proceeding w^as looked upon by 
many as a reflecnon upon the Church of Geneva. This was the feeling 
of the Lord President, the Earl of Huntington, who wrote to Burleigh that 
' ' his lordship could judge what flame this spark was likely to breed, if ifc 
should kindle ; for it could not but be ill taken by aU the godly learned, 
both at home and in all the foreign churches abroad, that we should al- 
low of the popish massing priests in our ministry, and disallow of the min- 
isters made in a Eeformed Church," On the other side, the Archbishop's 
Chancellor reported that AVhittrogham had not proved that he had been 
ordained "at Geneva according to the order of the Genevan [oMce or 
book], by public authority established there." (Strype, Annah, Oxford 

* Whittingham was one of the leaders of the Anti-Litnrgical party at 
Frankfort, during the reign of 3Iary. He retired to Geneva, and took 
part in the translation of the Geneva Bitle. There is the best reason 
for believing that if Whittingham and Travers had not been obnoxious on 

acccimt of their Pniitanism. there wotiid have teen no proceedings against 
them. 



TO THE OTHER PROTESTANT CHtJKCHES. 189 

ed., II., ii., 170.) The Archbisliop asserted that "neither in Geneva nor 
in any Reformed church in Europe it could be proved that any such or- 
ders were ever used or allowed of." In short, the attempt to depose 
Wbittingham was defended on the ground that he had not been ordained 
according- to the Geneva method ; and there is a pretty strong implica- 
tion that, if he had been, there would be no ground for the proceeding 
against him. Is it not a case of exceptio probat regulam f 

Travers was a candidate for the ofEce of Master of the Temple, where 
he was a preacher at the time when Hooker was appointed to the place. 
Travers was a strict Calvinist and a strenuous Puritan. On this last ground 
he was peculiarly obnoxious to Whitgift. Whitgift resolved to silence 
him, and alleged as a reason that he had not been properly ordained. 
Travers replied that he had been ordained at Antwerp, after the method 
of the Dutch churches ; and asserted that many others, who had been 
ordained in Scotland and elsewhere abroad, had held oflBces in the Eng- 
lish Church — a statement which, as he was a man of acknowledged ve- 
racity, must be believed. He appealed to the statute of the 13th of 
Elizabeth. Whitgift is careful not to deny the validity of Presbyterian 
ordination, such as was practiced in the foreign churches. His ground 
was that Travers had gone abroad out of dislike to the "order of his 
own country " — the method of ordination in the English Church ; that 
he had been ordained by such ''as had not authority to ordain him." 
The charge was that Travers was a schismatic ; that, beiog in the Church 
of England, he ran abroad — " gaddeth into other countries" — and there 
got himself ordained, as was said, by Cartwright, and Villers, a Frenchman. 
In this case, as in that of Whittingham, there is no impeachment of the 
ordination of foreign ministers generally, but rather an implied admis- 
sion of its validity. Travers urged that Christ's Church being one, every 
person who has received ordination in one branch of it must be received 
as a minister in every other. Whitgift, in his annotations upon Travers' 
paper, refers to the fact that the French Church, when a minister comes 
to them from abroad, require something more than proof of his ordina- 
tion, and subject him to an additional " calling." When the Archbishop, 
in his note, remarks that the churches which allowed of Presbytery ''are 
an exception to the rule," he refers to the rule to which Travers appealed, 
viz. : that a minister in one place is a minister everywhere. The Presby- 
terian churches, Whitgift means to say, did not sanction this rule. Whit- 
gift, as we have said, in all his conflicts with the Puritans, never denies the 
validity of Presbyterian ordination, as established in the foreign Protes- 
tant churches. Travers, notwithstanding his deposition, which was ac- 
complished with difficulty, was called to Dublin by Archbishop Lof tus, 
and made Master of Trinity College, where he had for one of his pupils 
Archbishop Ussher, then in his youth. 

The act of the 13th of Elizabeth continued in force until the Restora- 
tion of Charles II., when, in 1662, the statute for uniformity was passed. 



190 THE PcELATION OF THE CHURCH OF EXGLAXD 

which forbade any person to hold any benefice, or to administer the sac- 
rament of the Lord's Supper " before he be ordained a priest by Episco- 
pal ordination." This statute took away the last protection which the 
law afforded to clergymen who had not been ordained by a bishop. 

The different attitude in relation to other Protestant bodies and to their 
ministry, which the English Church assumed under Laud, as compared 
with its position during the first three Protestant reigns, is a fact as well 
attested by the consent of historical scholars of various and conflicting 
schools as anything else in the ecclesiastical history of England. The 
reign of James I. formed the transition to this new position. The participa- 
tion of dignitaries of the English Church in the Synod of Dort, was one of 
the last conspicuous acts of fellowship with the Reformed Churches of 
the Continent. The Puritan controversy naturally led to this result. The 
Puritans were at first treated as schismatics, mutineers against the Xa- 
tional Church established by public authority. It was natural that the 
churches abroad, whose principles the Puritans espoused, should eventu- 
ally be included in the same condemnation, and be pronounced destitute 
of a duly ordained ministry. Especially was this natural when a great 
part of the Puritans themselves claimed a jure dixiiio sanction and an ex- 
clusive right for their own favorite system of polity. 

To enter into the merits of this great controversy, which rent English 
Protestantism in twain, is no part of my present purpose. Even at this 
late day it may not be perfectly easy to hold the scales of judgment even ; 
but there ought to be no dispute about the facts. 

To tlie list of witnesses to tlie fact of the admission of 
ministers, not ordained by bisliops, to spiritual preferment 
in England, is to be added the name of Bishop Hall, who 
was the most conspicuous defender of episcopacy just prior 
to the civil war. In his Defence of the Humble Remon- 
strance^ which was written at that time, he says : " I know 
those, more than one, that by virtue only of that ordination 
which they have brought with them from other reformed 
churches, have enjoyed spiritual promotions and livings, 
without any exception against the lawfulness of their call- 
ino-." Such testimonv would seem to be sufncient to con- 
vince the most skeptical. The gravest objection which is 
urged against proofs of this character is that the witnesses 
ao not give names ! Then, when the Evangelists tell us 
that many people went to hear John the Baptist, we must 
discredit them because they do not mention names and 



TO THE OTIIEK PKOTESTANT CHUKCIIES. 191 

places of residence. As we have brought forward proofs 
derived from Episcopal sources, we may certainly be per- 
mitted, by way of corroboration, to add the statement of the 
learned Puritan historian, Neal, whom it is too much the 
f asliion of the High' Church school to disparage. Speaking 
of the state of things about the year 1580, he says : " The 
statute of the 13th Eliz., cap. xii., admits the ministration of 
those who had only been ordained according to the manner of 
the Scots, or other foreign churches : there were some scores, 
if not hundreds, of them now in the church." * The case of 
John Morrison, who was licensed by Archbishop Grindal, in 
1582, to preach and administer the sacraments in the prov- 
ince of Canterbury, has often been referred to. The license 
was issued, with the assent of the Archbishop, by Dr. Aubrey, 
the vicar-general; and it describes Morrison as one who 
had been ordained according to the '' laudable form and rite 
of the Reformed Church of Scotland," which at that time was 
essentially Presbyterian. There is no reason to doubt that 
his ordination was by the synod of the County of Lothian. 

The following is Professor Fisher's second letter to the 
Tribune. 

SiK : I have to acknowledg-e the courteous tone of the Rev, Dr. 
Drumm's communication, in which he makes another attempt to dis- 
prove the statement that Presbyterian ministers were once admitted to 
parishes in the Church of England without reordination. But, after 
having- read his acute and learned argument, I must still decline to com- 
ply with his invitation to retract the assertion, for the reason that I am 
fully convinced of its truth. The testimony of Lord Bacon, which Dr. 
Drumm does not notice ; of Bishop Cosin — I know of no reason for ques- 
tioning the genuineness of his letter — of Bishop Fleetwood, of Bishop 
Burnet, and of Strype, not to speak of other proofs, appears to me quite 
sufficient to establish the fact.f The circumstance that the witnesses do 
not mention the names of persons and of parishes only shows the absence 
of all anticipation that at some remote day their statement would be 
called in question. I am confirmed in the opinion that they are correct, 



* History of the Puritans, P. I. , c. vi. 

f For the conclusive testimony of Bishop Hall, see p. 190. 



192 THE EELATIOX OF THE CHUECH OF EXGLA:XD 

from the fact that the validity of Presbyterian ordination was not ques- 
tioned in the Church of England at that time, and that the relations of 
England with Scotland, and with the Continent, especially after the de- 
feat of the Protestants in Germany by Charles V., and during the Marian 
period, were such as would naturally bring into England ministers who 
had received ordination in the Protestant churches abroad. I am further 
strengthened in this opinion by the authority of such historians as Hallam 
and Macaulay, to say nothing of Lathbury and others of less note, and by 
the concnrrence of Episcopal theologians who have studied the subject. 
like Keble. * 

I have no occasion to engage in a debate with Dr. Drumm about the 
merits of English historical writers. I would only remind him that Hal- 
lam published his last revision of the ConUiiutional History, the best and 
most thorough of all his works, in 1846. Dr. Drumm is mistaken in say- 
ing that Hallam offers no evidence of his statement in regard to the ad- 
mission of Presbyterian ministers to parishes. Dr. Drumm probably re- 
ferred to the second passage in which Hallam makes this assertion, and 
overlooked the first, with which the marginal references are connected. 
Everybody knows that Macaulay paints in strong colors ; but a few in- 
stances of error, as when he confounds George Penn the pardon-broker 
with William Penn the Quaker, only set in relief the miraculous reten- 
tiveness and almost unfailing accuracy of his memory. As to Burnet, I 
think Macaulay right, who says of the charge of inaccuracy brought 
against him : "I believe the charge to be altogether unjust. He appears 
to be singularly inaccurate only because his narrative has been subjected 
to scrutiny singularly severe and unfriendly." Burnet was bom in Scot- 
land about the beginning of the civil war in England ; he was personally 
familiar with both countries, and with the churches abroad ; and he was 
an honest man. When, therefore, in explaining the Act of Uniformity 
of 1661, he says (in the History of his oicn Time) : "-Another point was 
fixed by the Act of Uniformity, which was more at large formerly ; those 
who came to England from the foreign churches had not been required to 
be ordained among us ; but now all that had not Episcopal ordination 
were made incapable of holding any ecclesiastical benefice " — I believe 
that he tells the truth. 



* Keble says : ' ' Xearly up to the time when he [Hooker] wrote, num- 
bers had been admitted to the ministry of the Church in England, with 
no better than Presbyterian ordination, and it appears by Travers's Suppli- 
cation to the Council that such was the construction not uncommonly put 
upon the statute of the 13th of Elizabeth, permitting those who had re- 
ceived orders in any other form than that of the English Service Book, on 
giving certain securities, to exercise their calling in England." — Preface to 
Hooker's Works ^ vol. i., xxvi. 



TO THE OTHER PROTESTANT CHURCHES. 193 

Dr. Drumm seems to differ from me in relation to the date when the 
jure divino doctrine of episcopacy began to be promulgated in the Church 
of England. -He attributes this doctrine to Whitgift, Archbishop of Can- 
terbury, in the closing years of Elizabeth's reign. In this Dr. Drumm is 
surely wrong. If the passage which he quotes warranted the inference 
which he draws from it, it would stand in flagrant contradiction to the 
whole tenor of Whitgift' s writings, and to his explicit affirmations. By 
the jure dicino doctrine is meant not simply that episcopacy existed in 
the apostolic age, under the sanction of the apostles, but that it is a per- 
petual and indispensable form of polity. Whitgift believed in the apos- 
tolic origin of episcopacy, and that it ought to be continued ; but he did 
not deny that churches, with a lawful ministry, could exist without it. 
In the letter to Beza, from which Dr. Drumm has quoted, which was 
written as late as 1593, he says : " There is no mortal man more studious 
of the peace of the church than myself ; nor one who, from his soul, 
more truly wisheth that every particular church would mind its own busi- 
ness, and not prescribe the laws of rites and the manner of government 
to others." This practice it is, he adds, " which bringeth forth that un- 
happy estrangement of souls among brethren." He agrees with Beza 
that * ' liberty was to be left to every church, in rites and such externals, 
so that they be made to edification." "I pray," he says, "that you 
would go on, by your daily prayers poured forth to God, to help us and 
the whole Church of England, which we do diligently for you and your 
church settled there with you. " In the same letter, Whitgift says that 
Sutcliff's book (published in 1591) was the first attack that had been 
made in England against the Presbyterian system as it existed abroad ; 
and that this was pro voiced by the long- continued aspersions cast upon 
the English system by the Puritans and by their foreign abettors.* In 
the preface to the "Defense" against Cartwright, Whitgift says of "the 
order of things external, touching the government of the church and ad- 
ministration of the sacraments : " "We do not take upon us (as we are 
slandered) either to blame or to condemn other churches, for such orders 
as they have received most fit for their estates." Elsewhere he says : 
"That anyone kind of government is so necessary that without it the 
church cannot be saved, or that it may not be altered into some other 
kind thought to be more expedient, I utterly deny." He cites with ap- 
proval the declaration of Calvin that "in ceremonies and external disci- 
pline, He [Godj hath not in Scripture particularly determined anything, 
but left the same to His church, to make or to abrogate, to alter or con- 
tinue, to add or to take away, as shall be thought from time to time most 
convenient for the present state of the church." " Wherein," says Whit- 
gift, " do we agree with the Papists ? or wherein do we dissent from the 
Reformed Churches ? With these we have all points of doctrine and 

* Strype, Life of Whitgift^ b. iv., c. x. 



194 THE RELATION OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 

snbstance common ; from the other we dissent, in the most part both of 
doctrine and ceremonies." * The episcopacy which Whitgift advocates 
is a superiority of one minister over other ministers in office or degree, as 
an arrangement of government, for the sake of union and discipline. 
Rome to him is still "Antichrist," and the foreign churches of the Prot- 
estants are recognized and honored as they were by Cranmer and Parker. 

The jure divino theory dates from the era of Laud. It is intimately 
connected with the sacerdotal idea of episcopacy which, prior to that 
date, however it may have 'been suggested, had not gained a foothold in 
the Church of England, and had been repudiated in the teaching of her 
greatest reformers and divines. It was one item in that accusation 
against Laud which cost him his head, that» as a part of a scheme for 
" Homanizing " the Church of England, he had broken off communion 
with the Protestant churches abroad, and had tried to lead Bishop Hall 
to lay down a theory of episcopacy that would exclude them from fellow- 
ship. Clarendon, describing the causes of the civil war, states how, a few 
years before its commencement, the foreign churches in England, which 
had before been cherished and protected, were broken up, on the osten- 
sible ground that they lent aid and comfort, by their example and other- 
wise, to the Puritans. This harsh measure of the government he explains 
by the fact " that the power of churchmen grew more transcendent, and, 
indeed, the faculties of the lay-counsellors more dull, lazy, and inactive." 
Then he relates how a new policy was adopted by the English ambassa- 
dors abroad, which turned the foreign Protestants against the English 
king : — 

*' Whereas in all former times, the embassadors, and all foreign minis- 
ters of state, employed from England into any parts where the reformed 
religion was exercised, frequented their churches, gave all possible coun- 
tenance to their profession, and held correspondence with the most active 
and powerful persons of that relation, and especially the embassador 
lieger at Paris, from the time of the Reformation, had diligently and 
constantly frequented the church at Charenton," "some advertisements, 
if not instructions, were given to the embassadors there ' to forbear any 
extraordinary commerce with that tribe.'" Lord Soudamore, the Eng- 
lish embassador, Clarendon further states, fitted up a chapel, in ritualistic 
fashion, in his own house, and took pains to say " that the Church of 
England looked not on the Huguenots as a part of their communion," 
"which," adds Clarendon, "was too much and too industriously dis- 
coursed at home." 

Dr. Drumm concedes that, in the age following the Reformation, there 
was an ecclesiastical fellowship between the Church of England and the 
Protestant churches abroad. However it may suit the convenience of 
certain writers to ignore or deny this fact, it is established by most cou- 

* These passages are from Whitgift's Writings^ Parker Soc. ed. 



TO THE OTHER PROTESTANT CHURCHES. 195 

vincing- and multiplied proofs. One might as well deny that Edward VI. 
and Elizabeth ever reig-ned, or that Cranmer, Ridley, Jewel, Parker, and 
their cotemporaries ever lived, as to call in question the fact of an unin- 
terrupted and cordial fellowship on their part with the Protestant, and 
especially the Zwinglian and Calvinistic, Churches of the Continent. It is 
hig-h time that the attempt of a school of partisan writers to cover up 
this fact should cease ; if, for no other reason, to save themselves from 
the contempt of all well-informed students of English history. The invi- 
tation given by Cranmer to foreign theologians, to take posts of high in- 
fluence and honor in the English Church, is only one of a multitude of 
circumstances which illustrate the ecclesiastical communion, as well as 
the personal intimacy that subsisted between the Anglican and the Con- 
tinental divines. If Bishop Potter now held in his diocese the station 
which Cranmer held in England, and if he were to invite the Rev. Dr. 
Schaff and the Rev. Dr. William Adams — or two Presbyterian ministers 
of equal distinction from Europe — to take chairs in the General Theolo- 
gical Seminary, where Episcopal clergymen are trained ; if he were, also, 
to request them, as Cranmer requested Bucer and Fagius, to translate 
the Bible into Latin, with "explanations of the difficult passages in 
each chapter, and the addition of summaries and parallel places," the 
whole to be subsequently rendered into English for the use of preachers 
and people ; * if he were to ask them, further, to furnish criticisms of 
the Prayer-Book with a view to the revision of it and to aid him in 
drawing up a creed to which the clergy of his diocese should subscribe ; 
if Bishop Potter were to do all this, he would surely be judged not to 
have any decided repugnance to Presbyterian ordination. But Cranmer 
and other leaders of the English Reformation have left on record direct 
and conclusive evidence of their opinions on this subject. Their opinions, 
it may be here remarked, are not ascertained by inference from a few 
old phrases left standing in the Prayer-Book, but from their personal 
declarations, supported and illustrated as these are by their uniform con- 
duct. 

Dr. Drumm concedes that the Church of England was in communion 
with the other Protestant churches ; but he sets forth an hypothesis to 
account for it, which I cannot but consider historically groundless. His 
explanation is, in substance, that the Reformers generally believed in 
episcopacy as the true and right form of church government, and that, 
for this reason, the English kept up their connection with their Protes- 
tant brethren, and maintained communion with them until forbearance 
ceased to be a virtue. The real explanation is, that until the conflict 
with Puritanism had reached its height, the English accorded with the 
Continental Reformers in regarding episcopacy as among things indiifer- 
ent, which a church might adopt or reject at its will. If there was tol- 

* Original Letters^ I. , 334. 



196 THE EELATIOX OF THE CHITECH OF EXGLAi^D 

eration or forbearance on either side, during the i^eriod to which I refer, 
it was exercised toward the English more than by them, and was so un- 
derstood hj both parties. 

At the outset of the Protestant movement, Luther in his Address tD 
the Xobles of the German Xation, struck at the root of the tree by deny- 
ing the existence of a priestly class in the church, and by asserting the uni- 
versal priesthood of disciples. A company of pious laymen, in a desert, 
could choose one of their number to be their minister, and ' " the man so 
chosen would be as truly a priest as if all the bishops in the world had 
consecrated him." This doctrine was the key-note to the Reformation. 
It was professed in its essential principle by the Reformers in all countries, 
and by none more emphatically than by Cranmer. With him it was mingled 
with a very strong infusion of Erastianism. " If all the bishops and priests 
In a region were dead."' he says, it is not forbidden by the divine law that 
'' the king of that region should make bishops and priests to supply the 
same. " He declares that bishops and priests are originally and intrinsi- 
cally the same class of ministers, and that ordination and consecration 
are "comely ceremonies," but are not necessary. It is time that the 
Lutheran Reformers had no objection to episcopacy as an ecclesiastical 
arrangement, exisungjure hiimano. Bishops were retained in Sweden, 
and, in the form of superintendents, in Denmark. The Lutherans ex- 
pressed their view in the Smalcaldic Articles, where they affirm the parity 
of the clergy, declare episcopacy, or the precedence of one over others, a 
human institution, and assert that when ordinary bishops become ene- 
mies of the church, or refuse to ordain, the church can dispense with 
them, since with the church rests the right to call, elect, and ordain her 
ministers. Melanchthon wanted bishops, and Luther would not have ob- 
jected to them, as a preventive of disorder and a counterpoise to the 
apprehended tyranny of the civil authority. In England, generally speak- 
ing, the same views prevailed ; and in the reign of Edward VI., bishops 
frequently went by the name of superintendents. * The principles of 
Calvin on this subject were in harmony with those of Luther, Melanchthon, 
and Cranmer. I am acquainted with the story of the intercepted letter, 
which Strype has taken up in his Life of Parker ; but I know of no evi- 
dence to lead one to think that Calvin wished to have episcopacy intro- 
duced into the Reformed Churches, which had given it up. But he 
recommended the King of Poland to retain bishops, and he felt no repug- 
nance to the exercise of a presidency, superintendence, or official superi- 
ority by one minister, who should be appointed to such a duty by the 
church. Such a station in reality, though not in name, he held himself 
at Geneva. When Swiss divines came to England they generally found 
many things which they wished to see reformed ; but to bishops, as such, 
they had no repugnance. When English divines went to Strasburg, 

* See Strype, Annals of the Reformation. 



TO THE OTHER PROTESTANT CHURCHES. 197 

Zurich, or Geneva, they felt not the slightest scruples on account of the 
parity of the clergy which they found to be there established. 

This was the state of things until the Puritan controversy grew warm. 
This controversy grew up partly out of the fondness which English di- 
vines acquired, during their exile, for the polity and worship of the Hel- 
vetic churches. For a long period the advocates of the Anglican polity 
acted on the defensive. This was not from any spirit of forbearance, 
much less of condescension, toward the foreign churches, but because 
they had no thought of claiming for their polity a jure didiio sanction, 
and never dreamed that the foreign churches were under any obligation 
to adopt it. Kjure divino theory of church polity was first broached on 
the Puritan side. The Anglicans opposed it by denying that forms of 
church government are prescribed by positive law. As the conflict waxed 
hot, in the latter part of Elizabeth's reign, a class of defenders of 
episcopacy arose, of whom Hooker is the chief, who held that this polity 
being, in their view, apostolic in its origin, having generally prevailed, 
and being conducive to order, should be everywhere retained, unless pe- 
culiar circumstances forbid its acceptance. These writers, however, do 
not assert tYiQJiLre dicino theory, in the proper sense of the terms, since 
they recognize the foreign Protestant churches as true churches, and their 
ministry as lawfully ordained. Substantially this position is taken by sev- 
eral of the foremost episcopal divines of the seventeenth century, as Arch- 
bishop Ussher and Bishops Hall and Stillingfleet. Ussher thought that 
the churches of Holland had less reason for dropping episcopacy than the 
churches of France ; yet he says, " I do profess that with like affection 1 
should receive the blessed sacrament at the hands of the Dutch ministers 
if I were in Holland, as I should do at the hands of the French ministers 
if I were at Charenton." Hall loves and reveres the Protestant churches 
abroad as the " dear sisters " of the English Church. 

Another element was requisite to constitute the full-blown doctrine of 
/wre ^*«m(9 episcopacy. This was the sacerdotal theory ; the doctrine of 
a continued, particular priesthood, which the Reformers had unanimously 
rejected. It began to be claimed that the clergy are, by virtue of the ex- 
clusive right of the episcopal order to consecrate and ordain, a self-per- 
petuating body, transmitting through an unbroken channel the grace 
that qualifies the ministry for their office ; so that the church — the body 
of the laity — have lost out of their hands the power to create and ordain 
their ministers. This theory logically carried with it the rupture of com- 
munion with the non-episcopal Protestant bodies, and as far as it was re- 
ceived, it effected this result. 

As to the alleged forbearance of the Anglican Church and of its divines, 
nothing is more apparent in the history of the English Reformation than 
the deference felt and expressed by the Anglican leaders towards the Re- 
formers on the Continent, who led in the great revolt against Rome, and 
were the guides of the Protestant religious communities abroad. The 



198 THE EELATION OF THE CHUECH OE EXGLAISD 

ciicumstances of England, in tlie long and doubtful struggle witli the 
Eoman Catholic party, naturally led the English Reformers to seek the 
counsel and lean upon the sympathy of their continental brethren. Cer- 
tain it is that the former perpetually turned to the foreign divines for ad- 
vice. When the troubles arose among the English exiles at Frankfort 
between the adherents of the Liturgy, led by Cox, afterward Bishop of 
Ely, and their opponents^ led by Knox — the first manifestation of the dif- 
ferences that led to the Puritan coatroversy — one minor point of dissen- 
sion was on the question whether the ministers should be equal in power, 
or whether precedence should be given to one of them. * Both factions, 
by a common instinct, appealed to Calvin for advice. Afterward, when 
the Puritan controversy broke forth in England, both parties applied for 
encouragement and support to Zurich and G-eneva. The personal influ- 
ence of Calvin and Bullinger in England, especially after Padley and 
Cranmer adopted the Swiss doctrine of the sacrament, was for a long time 
vrell-nigh authoritative. Their treatises were the text-books in theology, 
recommended to the clergy, and everywhere in their hands. Their names 
were spoken with reverence. We see in the writings of Hooker, at a time 
when the contest with the Puritans was beginning to break up this old 
habit of unqualified respect for Calvin, how much of this feeling still re- 
mains. Hooker not only says that Calvin did the best he could in his 
church arrangements at Geneva, but he pronounces an elaborate and 
glowing eulogy upon him and his writings — an encomium which I fear 
that many who are accustomed to praise Hooker without stint have never 
read. If it be said that in the Puritan conflict the Anglican divines long 
abstained from direct attacks on the Presbyterian system, and from ex- 
pressions disparaging to the foreign churches, this is true. Whitgift as- 
serts this fact, and perhaps may be said to exemplify it. But this re- 
serve, due in great part though it was to fraternal feeling, was partly con- 
sequent on the old sentiment of respect for the Helvetic Reformers and 
their churches. This it is which leads Whitgift to quote Calvin, Zwingle, 
Bullinger. and the others, on almost every page, not simply because his 
Puritan adversaries rested on their authority, but because he himself re- 
garded them with profoimd respect and esteem. In the first three Prot- 
estant reig-ns we do not find the Anglican Church, nor any party in the 
Anglican Church, taking airs in reference to other Protestant bodies. 
There was no temptation to this sort of arrogance ; and if it had shown 
itself, it would have met with a swift rebuke from the great men who 
were guiding the fortunes of Protestantism on the Continent. 

The sacerdotal theory of the ministry is responsible for the separation, 
as far as it exists, of the Church of England from the other Protestant 
churches. In England, however, the Puritan churches were shut out, on 

* A Brief Discourse of the Troubles begun at Frankfort, etc., pp. cxxxv., 
cxlvi. et ai 



TO THE OTHER PROTEST ANT CHURCHES. 199 

an independent ground, as being schismatical. The sacerdotal theory is 
a contribution of the school of Laud. Germs of it may, perhaps, be found 
earlier. It may be implied in isolated expressions of former Anglican 
writers ; but it takes more than one swallow to make a spring. Thomas 
Becon, the chaplain of Cranmer, earnestly contends, in his voluminous 
Catechism, that " priest," in the Eucharistic service, is the equivalent, 
not of " sacerdos " but of "presbyter," and that it means only ''minis- 
ter," with which term it is there used interchangeably. Passing on to 
Hooker, we find him saying that a minister may be called a priest, as 
Paul calls fish flesh ; that sacrifice is " now no part of the church minis- 
try," and that though the term " priest " is not inadmissible, yet the 
word "presbyter" "doth seem more fit, and, in propriety of speech, 
more agreeable than ' priest,' with the drift of the whole G-ospel of Jesus 
Christ." * I do not concur with all of Keble's interpretations of Hooker, 
but I deem it a mark of candor in Keble to concede that there is a 
marked distinction between Hooker's conception of episcopacy and of the 
succession, and that of "Laud, Hammond, and Leslie in the two next 
generations." Hooker's episcopacy is predominantly one of jurisdiction 
and government ; the latter theory is a full retrogression to sacerdotal- 
ism. 

In concluding, I beg leave to say that I have written without any ref- 
erence to any recent movements or controversies in the Episcopal Church. 
In the evening service of the Prayer-Book, after the supplication for the 
clergy and congregations of the Episcopal Church, there follows, in the 
simple but majestic style of the Liturgy, an impressive prayer for the 
"holy church universal," that "all who profess and call themselves 
Christians " may be led aright. In this prayer, with its catholic idea of 
the church, as well as in the supplication that precedes it, I can heartily 
join. 

In the foregoing letter, reference is made to the opinions 
of Ussher, Hall, and Stillingfleet. The most learned de- 
fender of episcopacy in the seventeenth century was James 
Ussher, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland. 
From early life he had an inextinguishable thirst for the 
study of history a,nd antiquities. This taste was awakened 
and stimulated by a passage in Cicero, where he says: 
" Wescire quid antea quam natus sis acciderit id est semper 
esse puermn " — not to know what happened before you 
were born is to be always a boy. The struggle that was go- 



* Hooker (Keble's ed.), ii., 469, 470. 



200 THE RELATION OF THE CHTJECH OF ENGLAND 

ing on between Protestantism and Eomanism in the field of 
argument, and especially Stapleton's Fortress of the Faith, 
a Roman Catholic polemical book, in which the antiquity of 
the Romish creed was maintained, in opposition to the 
alleged novelty of the Reformed Church, impelled Ussher to 
undertake the reading of the entire body of patristic litera- 
ture — a task which he is said to have accomplished in eigh- 
teen years. By this means he armed himself for confl.ict 
with the advocates of the Church of Rome, for the most 
learned of whom he was more than a match. ]^o one can 
examine any of Ussher's works — his Antiquities of the 
British Churches, for example — and not be struck with the 
vast extent of his erudition. Truly there were giants in 
those days. 

Ussher first printed in 1611 two short essays on the Epis- 
copal controversy. The first was entitled The Original 
of Bishops and Metropolitans ; the second was The Jicdg- 
ment of Br. Bainoldes touching the Original of Ejpis- 
cqpacy, more largely Confirmed out of Antiquity."^ The 
sort of episcopacy which Ussher set out to uphold may be 
seen from this extract from The Judgment of Bainoldes, 
which is given by Ussher himself at the outset of his sec- 
ond essay: " When elders were ordained by the apostles in 
every chm'ch to feed the flock of Christ, whereof the Holy 
Ghost had made them overseers, they, to the intent they 
might the better do it, by common counsel and consent, did 
use to assemble themselves and meet together. In the 
which meetings, for the more orderly handling and conclud- 
ing of things pertaining to their charge, they chose one 
amongst them to be the president of their company and mod- 
erator of their actions." This arrangement for a presidency 
in the board of elders or ministers in a church was counte- 
nanced and sanctioned, Ussher maintains, by the apostles. 
His great arguments are the angels of the Apocalypse, 

* Ussher's WorJcs^ vol. vii. 



TO THE OTHEK PROTESTANT CHURCHES. 201 

whom he takes for bishops or head pastors — contrary to the 
prevailing view of the best critics now, including Dr. Light- 
foot ; and the Ignatian Epistles, which were then fresh and 
seem to have made a strong impression on Ussher's mind. 
It is this mild sort of episcopacy, and nothing more — a su- 
perintendence or presidency exercised by one presbyter over 
his peers — that the archbishop tries to prove to have had an 
apostolical origin. But even for this system he does not 
claim anjjus dwinum ^ that is, a church can exist without 
it. He nowhere pretends that a church cannot exist with- 
out it. It was this form of synodal episcopacy which was 
drawn out by Ussher in writing, and which Baxter and his 
associates proposed, at the time of the Savoy Conference, 
as a basis for agreement between the Presbyterian and Epis- 
copal parties. Apostolic succession, regarded in the light 
of a vehicle for the transmission of grace and as indispensa- 
ble to the existence of a lawful ministry, is something ut- 
terly foreign to Ussher's whole theory and way of thinking. 
It is governmental, not sacerdotal episcopacy that he favors. 
" The intrinsical power of ordaining," says Ussher, ^' pro- 
ceedeth not from jurisdiction, but only from order. But a 
presbyter hath the same order m specie with a bishop — ergo, 
a presbj^ter hath equally an intrinsical power to give orders 
and is equal to him in the power of order ; the bishop hav- 
ing no higher degree in respect of intention or extension of 
the character of order, though he hath a higher degree — 
i. e., a more eminent place in respect of authority and juris- 
diction in spiritual regiment." 

Baxter, in his Life, relates an interesting conversation 
which he had with Ussher on this subject. ''I asked him, 
also, his judgment about the validity of presbyters' ordina- 
tion. Which he asserted, and told me that the king 
[Charles L] asked him, in the Isle of Wight, wherever he 
found in antiquity that presbyters alone ordained any ; and 
that he answered, I can show your Majesty more, even 
where presbyters alone successively ordained bishops, and 



202 THE RELATION OF THE CHUECH OF ENGLAND 

iDstanced in Hierom's [Jerome's] words of tlie presbyters of 
Alexandria choosing and making their own bishops from .the 
days of Mark till Herodius and Dionvsius." 

Respecting the foreign Protestant chnrches Ussher wiites 
thus: '^ I have ever declared my opinion to be that Ejpisco- 
pus et Presbyter gradu tantum differunt, non ordine, and 
consequently that in places where bishops cannot be had the 
ordination of presbyters standeth valid ; yet, on the other 
side, holding, as I do, that a bishop hath a superiority in de- 
gree over a presbyter, you may easily judge that the ordina- 
tion made by such presbyters as have severed themselves 
fi'om those bishops, unto whom they have sworn canonical 
obedience, cannot possibly by me be excused fi'om being 
schismatical. And howsoever I must needs think that the 
churches which have no bishops are thereby become very 
much defective in their government, and that the churches 
in France, who, living under a Popish power, cannot do 
what they would, are more excusable in this defect than the 
Low Comitries, that live under a free state, yet for testify- 
ing my communion with these chm-ches (which I do love and 
honor as true members of the Church Universal), I do pro- 
fess that with like affection I should receive the blessed 
sacrament at the hands of the Dutch ministers, if I were in 
Holland, as I should do at the hands of the French minis- 
ters, if I were in Charenton." '' The aoToement or dis- 
agreement in radical or fundamental doctrines, not the con- 
sonancy or dissonancy in the particular points of ecclesiasti- 
cal government, is with me (and I hope with -every man 
that mindeth peace) the rule of adhering to or receding from 
the communion of any church." * Considering that Ussher 
was a contemporary of Laud, and lived in the heat and fer- 
ment of the Puritan controversy, these extracts do credit at 
once to his learning and to the native liberality of his mind. 
They show, first, that he considered the episcopate an ar- 

* Worlcs^ Appendix, vii. 



TO THE OTHER PROTESTANT CHURCHES. 203 

rangement of government, not a vehicle for the transmission 
of grace ; secondly, that a polity that dispenses with the 
episcopate he considered less desirable, but in given circum- 
stances admissible; thirdly, that he had no disposition to 
break off communion with the other Protestant bodies 
abroad. The distinction which Ussher makes between Dis- 
senters or Separatists in England and the foreign churches 
is worthy of special attention. His objection to the Puri- 
tans was founded not on their polity in itself considered, but 
on what he considered the schismatical character of their 
movement. They had no just ground, as he thought, for 
renouncing the government of the Church of England. The 
Dutch and French Churches he honored and loved. The 
Puritans, under substantially the same polity, he could not 
approve and recognize. It required another step (and a 
very long one) to be taken before the High Church ground 
could be reached, where the absolute necessity of Episcopal 
ordination is affirmed and all the Protestant churches of 
Europe are cast out of fellowship. As the Puritans and 
the Dutch were alike among the first settlers in this country, 
and as we have no national church, it must be somewhat 
difficult, on Ussher's principles, to make out a case of schism 
against the churches which they here established. 

Bishop E[all, being then Dean of Norwich, had sat, as 
one of the deputies sent by James I. from the Church of 
England, in the Synod of Dort. In various writings — for 
example, in his Apology against the Broionists — he had ex- 
pressed his affection and veneration for the Protestant 
churches abroad, the '• sisters " of the Church of England, 
as he repeatedly styles them. The expulsion of episcopacy 
from Scotland, and the formation of the Solenm League and 
Covenant, in 1638, sharpened his polemical feeling against . 
the opponents of the Episcopal polity. At the request of" 
Laud, he wrote his work on the Divine Eight of Episcopacy. 
Laud, at the outset, was dissatisfied with the positions which 
he proposed to take ; for he was careful to avoid aU con- 



204 THE RELATION OF THE CHUECH OF ENGLAND 

demnation of the chm^clies abroad. * How far Hall fell 
short of the ju?'e divino doctrine, in the proper sense, may 
be seen f roDi the following passage in his subsequent De- 
fence of the Humble Remonstrance for Liturgy and Episco- 
jpacy : 

" The imputation pretended to be cast npon all the Eeformed churches 
which want this government, I endeavored so to satisfy, that I might 
justly decline the envy which is intended thereby to be I'aised against 
us : for which cause I professed that we do ' love and honor those our 
sister churches as the dear spouse of Christ,' and give zealous testimonies 
of our well-wishing to them. Tour uncharitableness offers to choke me 
with these scandalous censures and disgraceful terms, which some of 
ours have let fall upon those churches and their eminent professors; 
which I confess it is more easy to be sorry for than on some hands to ex- 
cuse. The error of a few may not be imputed to all. 

" My just defence is that no such consequent can be drawn from our 
opinion ; forasmuch as the divine or apostolical right, which we hold, 
goes not so high as if there were an express command, that upon an ab- 
solute necessity there must be either episcopacy or no church ; but so far 
only, that it both may and ought to be. How fain would you here find 
me in a contradiction ! while I onewhere reckon episcopacy among mat- 
ters essential to the church ; anotherwhere deny it to be of the essence 
thereof ! Wherein you vrillingly hide your eyes, that you may not see 
the distinction that I make expressly betwixt the being and the well-being 
of a church ; afiirming that those churches to whom this power and fac- 
ulty is denied lose nothing of the true essence of a church, though they 
miss something of their glory and perfection. No, brethren ; it is enough 
for some of your friends to hold their discipline altogether essential to the 
very being of a church ; we dare not be so zealous." 

' ' The question which you ask concerning the reason of the different 
entertainment given in our church to priests converted to us from Rome, 
and to ministers who in Queen Mary's days bad received imposition of 
hands in Reformed churches abroad, is merely personal, neither can 
challenge my decision. Only I give you these two answers. That what 
fault soever may be in the easy admittance of those who have received 
Romish orders, the sticking at the admission of our brethren returning 
from Reformed Churches, was not in case of ordination, but of institution: 
tJiey had teen acknowledged ministers of Christy without any other hands 
laid upon them ; but, according to the laws of our land, they were not 

* See the correspondence, in Hall's TF(?r^'S, vol. x. Also, Lawson's Life 
of Laud^ ii. , 334 seq. 



TO THE OTHER PEOTESTANT CHUKCHES. 205 

perhaps capable of institution to a benefice unless they were so qualified 
as the statutes of this realm do require. And, secondly, I know those, 
more than one, that by virtue only of that ordination which they have 
brought with them from other Reformed churches, have enjoyed spiritual 
promotions and livings, without any exception against the lawfulness of 
their calling." * 

Bishop Hall ^\Tote his Humtle Remonstrance in 1640-41, 
and the defence of it, from which this extract is taken, after- 
wards, l^othing can be more definite and satisfactory than 
the proof which it affords that the ordination of the foreign 
churches was then allowed to be lawful and sufficient. Dif- 
ficulties were sometimes raised about their institution ; but, 
notwithstanding these difficulties. Hall knew of instances in 
which they were admitted to benefices. 

Few of the divines of England in the seventeenth- century, 
that golden age of English theology, equal in vigor of rea- 
soning powers and in extent of erudition, not to speak of 
perspicuity and force of style, Edward Stillingfleet, Bishop 
of jS^orwich. His Origines Sacrm may be somewhat anti- 
quated in respect to its learning, through the wider reach of 
oriental studies in modern days ; but in power of argument 
and in the mtellectual mastery of the theme, it remains a 
noble defence of the Christian faith and a worthy memorial 
of the genius and attainments of its author. Stillingfleet 
did not fear to measure swords with Locke on questions of 
metaphysics ; and it was the letter of the Bishop of E'orwich 
that drew from the philosopher the nearest approach to an 
explicit assertion of an a prioTi source of knowledge, which 
really goes beyond the function of sensation and reflection. 

When Stillingfleet was only twenty-four years of age and 
Rector of Sutton, he published The Irenicum, a Weapon- 
salve for the Churches Wounds. The second edition ap- 
peared in 1662, the memorable year when tho Act of Uni- 
formity was passed, by which two thousand of the ministers 

♦Hairs Works, ix.,d65,35Q. 



206 THE RELATION OF THE CHUEOH OF ENGLAND 

of England, and those among the best for knowledge, piety, 
eloquence, and pastoral fidelity, were diiven from their par- 
ishes, and thrown into the ranks of non-conformity. The 
Irenieum is directed against the assumed divine right of 
particular forms of church government. Among the mot- 
toes on the title-page is a sentence of Casaubon, in which it 
is asserted that if a. proper discrimination were made be- 
tween " divine right ^''—jiis divimmn — and positive or eccle- 
siastical law, controversy among good men would cease to be 
bitter or of long duration. This sentence is followed by an- 
other from Grotius of the same purport. Stillingileet aims 
to win non-conformists over to the established church by 
demonstrating that there is no definite form of government 
prescribed to the church ; that neither the Episcopal nor the 
Presbyterian system can claim divine, or exclusive, authority ; 
and that, therefore, there is no reason why a dissenter should 
not reconcile himself to the system of the English church, 
whatever may be his preference in the matter. He seeks to 
make good his thesis, first by an inquiry into the dictates of 
the law of nature, and, secondly, by an examination of posi- 
tive or revealed law ; his aim being under each head to dis- 
prove the claim to a sanction fi^om either source for the ex- 
clusive pretensions of the episcopal or the non-episcopal 
method of organization. Later in life, Stillingfleet thought 
that, from a desire for peace, he had conceded too much to 
dissenters ; but there is no reason to think that he ever re- 
nounced the main principles of his work, or came to question 
the justice of its principal arguments. Taken as a whole, it 
is one of the finest pieces of historical and theological rea- 
soning within the compass of English theological literature. 
"We advert to Stillingfleet's famous Irenicunu in this 
place, chiefly in order to call attention to his excellent state- 
ment of the position of the Anglican Reformers and di- 
vines before his time, and to the absence in them of the 
jure divino theory of episcopacy — the theory that bishops 
are indispensable to the constitution of a church, and to the 



TO THE OTHER PEOTESTANT CHURCHES. 207 

validity of orders. This lucid and correct statement is given 
in chapter viii. of Part II. He does not confine himself to 
English divines, but shows " that the most eminent divines 
of the Eeformation," at home and abroad, " did never con- 
ceive any one form of church government necessary." He 
proves his proposition ; first, by referring " to those who 
make the form of church government mutable, and to de- 
pend upon the wisdom of the magistrate and of the church." 
This he declares has been the opinion of most divines of the 
Church of England since the Eeformation. He quotes, in 
full, Cranmer's Erastian declarations, which go so far as to 
dispense with the necessity of ordination altogether. Arch- 
bishop Whitgift, Bishop Bridges, Hooker, and others it is 
shown, advocated the same general view. Secondly, he re- 
fers to the divines who had believed in the original parity 
of the clergy, yet considered episcopacy lawful. Here are 
placed Calvin, Beza, Melanchthon, and others. Thirdly, he 
enumerates those who judge_ episcopacy to be the primitive 
form, yet look not on it as necessary. Here come Bishop 
Jewel, Fulke, Field, and many more. All these men who 
are named under the three heads, whatever were their views 
respecting the origin and antiquity of episcopacy, considered 
it neither necessary on the one hand, nor wrong and intol- 
erable on the other. They held it to be one of various ad- 
missible systems of polity, neither of which is necessary to 
the existence of a church, and either of which is of such a 
character that a Christian may live under it and submit to 
it with a good conscience. There are slight errors in Stil- 
lingfleet's classification. Jewel does not maintain the apos- 
tolic institution of episcopacy, as distinct from the office of 
presbyters, but intimates that the distinction rests on human 
authority alone. Generally speaking, however, Stilling- 
fleet's historical statements are correct, and they present a 
most conclusive refutation of the High Church assumption 
that the fathers of the Anglican Protestant Church denied 
the validity of the orders of non-episcopal churches. The 



208 THE RELATION OF THE CHUECH OF ENGLAIlfD 

whole treatise of Stillingfleet contains vrliolesome reading 
for partisans of wliatever stripe. 

A part of anotlier letter to the Tribime, in reply to criti- 
cisms of an Episcopal clergyman, is reproduced here, for 
the reason that it handles a special theory, brought forward 
to acconnt for the ecclesiastical sympathy between England 
and the Continent in the period following the Eeforma- 
tion. 

Tour correspondent dwells on the fact that the first generation of 
preachers in the Protestant churches were mostly ordained in the Roman 
Catholic Church— as if the question about the necessity of Episcopal or- 
dination was not a practical one. "Their orders." he says, "were all 
alike to begin with." Were not himdreds of new preachers going forth 
from Wittenberg, and afterward from Geneva ? But, apart from this 
fact, the difficulty in the way of all such pleas as your correspondent 
makes on this point is that the English Reformers do express themselves 
explicitly on these questions. They declare their opinions without am- 
biguity. They knew, moreover, perfectly well the constitution of the 
Lutheran Churches, and of the Churches of Geneva, Zurich, Holland, 
France, and other Protestant countries, and they make their constitution 
no barrier in the way of fraternal recognition and church fellowship. I 
have not been so heedless as to confound personal friendship with eccle- 
siastical fellowship ; but, apart from the direct evidence in the case, the 
personal intimacy of the English and the foreign divines involves, under the 
circumstances, convincing proof of such ecclesiastical fellowship. Tour 
correspondent criticises my statement of the opinion of Jewel. If he 
will turn to the seventh book of Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity^ he will 
find a reference to Jewel's belief on the origin of bishops. Hooker speaks 
of that opinion " which many have thought good to follow, and which 
myself did sometimes judge a great deal more probable than now I do, 
merely that after the apostles were deceased, churches did agree among 
themselves, for preservation of peace and order, to make one presbyter 
in each city chief over the rest." In the margin Hooker refers to Jewel 
among those who held this theory, and to his reply to Harding. It is 
probable that Hooker knew the opinions of his revered master, and the 
proper interpretation of the reply to Harding quite as well as anybody at 
the present day. 

The insinuation, by whomsoever made, that the recognition of the 
foreign Protestant churches and of their ministry, by the bishops and 
divines of the Church of England, was owing to the excitement or dis- 
order of the times, or to the immature form of the polity of the various 
Protestant bodies, is in violation of historical truth. The contest with 



TO THE OTHER PROTESTANT CHURCHES. 209 

the Roman Catholics caused all the questions connected with ordination 
to be freely and fully discussed. This recognition was far from being 
confined to the first three Protestant reigns. There is no laore honored 
name among the prelates of the seventeenth century than that of Bishop 
Hall, the author of The Contemplations. In his Apology against 
Brownists (fol. ed., p. 498), Bishop Hall says: "I reverence from my 
soul (so doth our church, their dear sister) those worthy foreign churches 
which have chosen and followed those forms of outward government that 
are every way fittest for their own condition." In another place, after 
referring to the recognition of the English Church by the foreign di- 
vines, and to the fact that Laski " was the allowed bishop of our first Re- 
formed strangers in this land " — that is, pastor of one of the foreign 
churches in England * — Bishop Hall says : " These sisters have learned 
to differ, and yet to love and reverence each other ; and in these cases to 
enjoy their own forms without prescription of necessity or censure." 
Hall, as is well known, was employed by Laud, at a later time, to de- 
fend episcopacy against the Puritans ; and Laud was dissatisfied with 
the concessions which even ab that day he proposed to make in favor of 
the foreign churches. It would be interesting to trace the rise and prog- 
ress of the sacerdotal theory of episcopacy in the English Church, and 
to show how it gradually supplanted, in the minds of a large part of that 
church, the old governmental theory which was held by the Reformers, 
and, in the seventeenth century, by such men as Ussher and Stillingfleefc. 
But even the hospitable Tribune would hardly find room for a full treat- 
ment of this theme. Episcopacy was first advocated in the English 
Church as a tolerable, expedient, a very ancient, and, by some, as the 
most ancient form of polity. Then it came to be defended as decidedly 
the best form, and the only legitimate one where circumstances will per- 
mit it to be adopted. This is the doctrine of Hooker. Then followed, 
in the era of Laud, the High Church or sacerdotal theory. These facts 
are notorious ; they are familiar to students of English history. They 
are conceded by writers of the Anglican Church of the highest repute for 
knowledge and impartiality. 

Why not frankly and honestly admit them, as Keble does, instead of 
resorting to various and incongruous methods of evading them ? It was 
the contest with the Puritans that developed among their opponents the 
jure divino doctrine. The Puritans first set up this exclusive claim for 
their own system, f The leading antagonists of the Puritans, for a long 

* Laski was superintendent of the Churches of the German, Italian, 
and French Protestants, residing in London. 

f It should be said, however, that Presbyterians did not generally ques- 
tion the validity of ordination by bishops, or deny that Episcopal minis- 
ters may lawfully administer the sacraments. The Episcopal system they 
asserted to be inconsistent with Scripture. 



210 THE EELATION OF THE CHUECH OF EXGLA;NT) 

period, foug-ht them by asserting- that there is no particular form of polity 
prescribed in the Bible for all time, and therefore of perpetual obligatioiL 
They took substantially the ground which Stillingfleet assumed in his 
Irenicum. Even Hooker makes room for the foreign churches, and 
founds his whole discussion on the distinction between eternal and posi- 
tive laws. He distinctly afl^rms (in b. vii. Keble's ed., vol. iii.. p. 165) 
that the church, for urgent cause, by general consent, is competent to 
take government away from the hands of her bishops. By degrees de- 
fenders of episcopacy imitated their opponents, and asserted for their 
own system a. jure dinno sanction and an exclusive right. The Puritans, 
thrown on the defensive, generally retreated to the old position of their 
adversaries, and contended that no form of polity is binding on Christians 
forever. In this long combat, Hamlet and Laertes have exchanged rapiers — 
an event that not unfrequently occurs in political and theological warfare. 
Your correspondent calls for the proof of a recognition, by conciliar or 
formal synodal action of the Church of England, of any orders but Epis- 
copal. In view of the known action of the Church of England, in the 
past, and the avowed opinions of her — I had almost said ''founders" 
— Reformers and noblest divines, one may well inquire whether the bur- 
den of proof is not on the other side. By what conciliar or synodal ac- 
tion have the orders of other Protestant churches been discredited ? It 
may be said that ministers who have not been ordained by bishops, are 
reordained when they pass over to the Episcopal Church. But this pro- 
ceeding may perhaps be defended by some on the Low Church, ground, 
taken by Archbishop Leighton, when he was ordained a second time as 
presbyter, viz. : that ordination is merely a ceremony of induction to the 
ministry and service of a particular church, and may, therefore, be re- 
peated. These are questions, however, with which I have nothing to do. 

A student derives fi'OHi converse with the dociiuientary 
soui'ces of various kinds, which pertain to anv period of his- 
tory, unpressions respecting the state of things, which may 
be verified by adducing special proofs, but which no single 
items of evidence, however convincing, can transfer to the 
reader in their full force. 

In illustrating the intimate relations of the Church of 
England with the Helvetic Churches, in the seventeenth 
century, we have more than once referred to the correspond- 
ence of the Reformers.^ There are a multitude of letters 

* Two volumes, published by the Parker Soc. , contain letters during 
the reigns of Henry YIIL, Edward YL, and Mary. Two additional vol- 
umes, united in one in the second edition, cover the reigrn of Elizabeth. 



TO THE OTHER PROTESTANT CHURCHES. 211 

written by Cranmer, Coverdale, Hooper, Cox, Horn, Pilk- 
ington, Sampson, Sandys, Jewel, Foxe, Parkhurst, Grindal, 
Humphrey, and other reformers, bishops, and leading di- 
vines, of the Church of England, to Calvin, Melanchthon, 
Bucer, BuUinger, Gualter, Martyr, and other continental 
divines, with their letters in return. This correspondence 
stretches over an interval extending fi^om the establishment 
of Protestantism in England to the closing part of Elizabeth's 
reign. Yet in all these free, unreserved communications, 
in which the differences among Protestants, as on the doc- 
trine of the Lord's Supper, are frequently considered, there 
is no hint of any trouble, alienation, or want of sympathy, 
on account of the difference of the English polity from that 
of the continental churches. The authors are engaged in a 
common cause,- fighting under a common banner, and the 
question of episcopacy does not excite a ripple of discontent 
with one another. This silence, under the peculiar circum- 
stances, is a more impressive proof of ecclesiastical sympathy 
than any overt declaration would be. Why, as late as 1573, 
Sandys, then Bishop of London and, afterwards. Archbishop 
of York, reports to Bullinger, the pastor of Zurich, the plat- 
form of the party which was aiming at the destruction of 
episcopacy, and says : ''I anxiously desire, most learned sir, 
to hear your opinion, and those of masters Gualter, Simler, 
and the rest of the brethren, respecting these things ; which 
for my own part I shall willingly follow, as being sound and 
agreeable to the Word of God. For if the whole matter in 
controversy were left to your arbitration, it would doubtless 
much contribute to the peace of our church. These good 
men are crying out that they have all the reformed churches 
on their side." '^ 

In 1580, a prayer was issued, by public authority, to be 
used on Fridays in the churches of England, in which, after 
a prayer for the church, we read : " And herein (good Lord) 

* Zurich Letters, p. 440. 



212 THE RELATION OF THE OHUKCH OF ENGLAND 

by special name we beseech Thee for the churches of 
France, Flanders, and of such other places." Then follows 
a supplication for " this church of England." In the pray- 
ers to be used by the English armies, who are fighting by 
the side of the Huguenots in France, and in the prayers to 
be offered at home for their success, the Protestants of 
France are spoken of as the members and representatives of 
the true church, in arms against Antichrist. We "most 
heartily beseech Thee, through the merits of Jesus Christ, 
our Saviour, to protect and strengthen thy servants, our 
brethren in France, that are now ready to fight for the 
glory of thy name." " Go before them, fight the battles of 
thy children, and subdue their enemies : so shall that proud 
generation have no cause to exult over thy true church, and 
over thy servants," etc."^ 

The churches of the foreigners, which were established in 
London, under the auspices of Edward I., furnish an illustra- 
tion of the sentiments of the English reformers towards 
their foreign brethren. The foreigners in London were to 
have four ministers, under the superintendence of John a 
Lasco. In the letters patent which were granted, in the 
fourth year of Edward, to these ministers, and constituting 
them a coi-poration, the motive assigned for the act is the 
duty of kings to care for the diffusion " of pure and uncor- 
rupted religion," and for the preservation of a church " con- 
stituted in truly Christian and apostolic d.octrines and rites." 
The grant is made with the intent that the gospel may be 
preached, and the sacraments administered " according to the 
Word of God and apostolical observance, by the ministers of 
the Germans and of the other foreigners." f Lasco states, 
in a letter to the King of Poland, that Edward, his council, 
and Cranmer were zealously favorable to his enterprise. 
The king hoped, through the influence of these foreign 



* Liturgical Services^ etc. , in the reign of Elizabeth, p. 578. 
t Ibid., p. 649. J. a Lasco, Opera, ii., 280, 281. 



TO THE OTHER PROTESTANT CHURCHES. 213 

cliurclies, to be aided in carrying forward the work of reform 
in England. * At Grlastonbnry, the weavers from Strasburg 
were organized into a church. They ordained their minis- 
ters by a metliod similar to that of the French churches. 
The ordination of the ministers of the churches of Lasco 
was, also, Presbyterian. If this reception of the foreigners 
and incorporation of them into churches had been merely an 
act of toleration extended to strangers, it would not have 
taken place in that age, had there not been an ecclesiastical 
recognition of them and sympathy with them. But there 
was more than bare toleration ; there was efficient encour- 
agement and patronage. An edifice was given them in 
London, in which to meet for worship, and their ministers 
were treated with marked respect and fraternal confidence. 

The Articles of the Church of England exhibit no trace of 
the theory which gives an exclusive sanctity to episcopacy. 
They are obviously drawn up according to the idea which 
prevailed when they were composed under Edward, and re- 
vised under Elizabeth, that each national church is to deter- 
mine its own polity and ceremonies. In Art. XIX., the visible 
chm'ch of Christ is defined to be a congregation of faithful 
men in which the Gospel is preached in its purity, and the 
sacraments administered in conformity, as to essentials, with 
Christ's ordinance. Here are the notes of the church, as they 
are given usually in Protestant creeds. Episcopacy is not 
among them. In Art. XXIII. , the choice and call of min- 
isters is declared to be in the hands of men '' who have pub- 
lic authority given unto them in the congregation " for this 
purpose. In Art. XXXI Y., we read : " It is not necessary 
that traditions and ceremonies be in all places one and utterly 
like, for at all times they have been diverse and may be 
changed according to the diversities of countries, times, and 
men's manners, so that nothing be ordained against God's 
Word." Then the wrong of breaking fi^om ceremonies " not 

* Letters of Lasco to the King of Poland, Opera, ii., 10. 



214 THE RELATION OF THE CHUECH OF ENGLAND 

repugnant to God's Word," and approved by antlioritj, is 
asserted. The most that is claimed by implication is that 
the rites of the church of England are not inconsistent with 
Scripture, nor forbidden by the Word of God. This was 
the old ground taken in the contest with the Puritans. The 
same Ai'ticle ends with ascribing to "every particular or 
national church " the authority, "to ordain, change, and abol- 
ish ceremonies and rites of the chm'ch," so far as they are 
of human authority. There is a fact respecting this Article 
which bears on the interpretation of it. There is a close re- 
semblance in its language to the 11th Article in the thirteen 
which were drawn up as the basis of an agreement between 
the English and German divines, at their conference in Lon- 
don, in 1538. "^ It was a platform on which Lutherans and 
Anglicans could alike stand. The XXXIYth Article relates 
to the "consecration of bishops and ministers." Here, if 
anywhere, we should look for the exclusive theory ; but there 
is not a word of it. The Ordinal of the Prayer-Book is de- 
clared " to contain all thmgs necessary to such consecration 
and ordering ; " " neither hath it anything that of itself is 
superstitious and ungodly." All who are consecrated or or- 
dered according to that form, are said to be " rightly, orderly, 
and lawfully consecrated and ordered." The Article is, so 
to speak, merely defensive. That there is no other lawful 
method of ordination is not in the faintest manner implied. 
That any one should suppose himself able to draw any sanc- 
tion for the exclusive theory from the articles would occa- 
sion astonishment, if we did not know that a class of theolo- 
gians have professed to find in them an assertion of Armin- 
ianism. After such a feat of interpretation, nothing in this 
line is sm^prising. 

We turn now to the Ordinal ; for this is the last refuge of 
the defenders of the jure dimiw construction of Anglican 

* See Cranmer's Miscellaneous Writings (Parker Soc. ed.), p. 477. 
Compare the Latin Articles of the English Church, in Memeyer, CoUectio 
Confessionunhy p. 608. 



TO THE OTHEK PliOTESTANT CHUKCHES. 215 

law. We are far from asserting that the Anglo-Catholic 
party has nothing to found itself upon. Such a party has 
existed from the beginning. The Prayer-Book contains vari- 
ous features which bear witness to the desire of its compilers 
to conciliate old prejudices and opinions, or to their inability 
to overcome them. But that party was comparatively weak 
when the formularies of the church of England took their 
shape, in the period of the Keformation. Had Edward YL 
lived longer, or had Elizabeth been less conservative and 
less domineering, other changes would have taken place ; for 
the Reformers averred that they considered their work far 
from complete. However, the party to which we refer did 
not succeed in incorporating their shibboleth into the law of 
the church. The preface to the Ordinal is the principal 
source of argument for the advocates of the exclusive inter- 
pretation of the Anglican system. We print in brackets the 
words that were added in 1661, after the Restoration : 

It is evident unto all men diligently reading the holy Scripture and 
ancient authors, that from the apostles' time there have been these or- 
ders of ministers in Christ's church; bishops, priests, and deacons, which 
ofBces were evermore had in such reverend estimation, that no man might 
presume to execute any of them, except he were first called, tried, exam- 
ined, and known to have such qualities as are requisite for the same ; 
and, also, by public prayer, with imposition of hands, were approved and 
admitted thereunto by lawful authority. And therefore, to the intent 
that these orders maybe continued, and reverently used and esteemed in 
the Church of England ; no man shall be accounted or taken a lawful 
bishop, priest, or deacon in the Church of England, or suffered to execute 
any of said functions, except he be called, tried, examined, and admitted 
thereunto, according to the form hereafter following [or hath formerly 
had episcopal consecration, or ordination.] 

On this document we have several remarks to make. 

1. The preamble simply asserts that from the apostolic 
age there have been in the church these orders of ministers. 
It does not affirm, or imply, that this arrangement is pre- 
scribed by the divine law ; much less, that a church cannot 
exist without it, or that where there is a modification of this 



216 THE RELATION OF THE CHIJECH OF ENGLAND 

system, the validity of ordination is destroyed. The intent 
is only to preserve this system in the Church of England — 
" this Church of England," as the phrase ran, in the Eevi- 
sion of 1552 — ^not to impose it, as a condition of ecclesiastical 
communion, on other churches. 

2. The form of ordination is presented exclusively as a 
condition of holdino^ office in the Chm-ch of EnHand. 

3. The invalidity of the ordination of Eoman Catholic 
priests was never asserted, although they were not ordained 
by the Anglican form. How, then, can the invalidity of 
Presbyterian ordination be inferred from this injunction of 
the preface ? Moreover, the statute of the 13th of Eliza- 
beth opened the way for the institution of Eoman Catholic 
converts, and, as we have shown, of Protestant mhiisters or- 
dained abroad. 

4. The validity of the ordination of the other Protestant 
churches was admitted by those who framed the Ordinal, 
and has been admitted by a numerous body of the most 
eminent doctors of the English Church. This fact ought to 
settle the interpretation of this document. 

5. If the term " orders " was meant to be taken in the 
strict, technical sense, then the preface says that bishops 
have existed as a distinct order in the church since the apos- 
tolic age. Under this view of the term, a fact is asserted, 
and nothing more ; and this assertion was allowed to enter 
into the preamble, without being challenged by such as 
held bishops and presbyters to be of the same order. But, 
in point of fact, the term " order " was not unfrequently 
used in a loose and general sense by those who held that the 
difference between the two classes of ministers is one of de- 
gree only. We will give a marked instance. Jewel, in his 
Apologia, says : " Credimus .... varios in ecclesia esse 
ordines ministrorum ; alios esse diaconos, alios presbyteros, 
alios episcopos," etc. In the edition of the same work in 
English (1563), the passage reads : " Furthermore, that 
there be divers degrees of ministers in the church, whereof 



TO THE OTHER PEOTESTANT CHUECHES. 217 

some be deacons," etc. ^ The word ordines is rendered de- 
grees. We know that Cranmer, who is supposed to have had 
a leading part in shaping the Ordinal of 1549, held bishops 
and presbyters to be different degrees of the same order. 
The revision of 1551, which resulted in Edward's second book, 
of 1552, was made under the direct or indirect influence 
of men like Peter Martyr, John a Lasco, Bucer, and Cal- 
vin, f The next revision, on the accession of Elizabeth, was 
accomplished by Parker, Cox, Pilkington, Grindal, Sandys, 
and others. Of those who were actually concerned in form- 
ing and revising the Ordinal, some of the most prominent 
are known to have held that bishops and presbyters differ 
only in degree. We know that many of the bishops of the 
Episcopal Church, of the highest repute, from Cranmer to 
Ussher, and since Ussher's time, have entertained this 
opinion. The High Church editors of the Prayer-Book 
say : % " The distinction of the order of bishops from that of 
priests was definitely asserted for the first time in 1661," 
although they maintain that it was previously implied in the 
preface to the Ordinal. " It was not," they add, " until the 
close of the sixteenth century that the distinction between 
the orders of bishops and priests was asserted." Yery little 
can be made from the mere use of the word " orders " in 
this preface. 

6. The changes made in the Ordinal in 1661 are very sig- 
nificant as to its original character. To the preface were 
added the words : " or hath formerly had Episcopal conse- 
cration or ordination." Why this addition, if the preface 
without it wholly excludes non-episcopal ministers from ser- 
vice in the Church of England ? But the alterations of 1661 
are obviously with a view to make a distinction between 
bishops and presbyter, such as the Ordinal had not recog- 
nized. The phrases, " Episcopal consecration or ordination^^'' 

* Jewel's 'Works (Parker Soc. ed.), iii., 10. 
f Blunt's Annotated Prayer-Book, p. 530. 
X Ibid., 566. 
10 



218 THE RELATION OF THE CHUBOH OF ENGLAOT) 

" ordained or consecrated a bishop," " form of ordaining or 
consecrating a bishop," for the first time definitely asserted 
the distinction of order between bishop and presbyter. * In 
the ordination of a priest, after the words " Receive the 
Holy Ghost," there were added the words : ''for the office 
and work of a priest in the chm*ch of God now committed 
to thee by the imposition of hands." Analogons phraseol- 
ogy was added in the service for the ordination of a bishop. 
Thns the distinction of the two offices was affirmed by im- 
plication, in a way in which it had not been affirmed before. 
Yarions other minor changes in the revision of 1661 indicate 
plainly the same design. But there was one alteration 
which deserves special attention. Prior to 1661, Acts xx., 
which describes the meeting of the Ephesian elders with 
Paul, and 1 Tim. iii., were read both at the ordaining of a 
priest and at the consecration of a bishop. Both these por- 
tions of Scripture were now assigned to the service for the 
consecration of bishops exclusively. The latter passage — 1 
Tim. iii., 1-8 — relates to the character and work of a 
"bishop." Before 1661, this chapter was deemed appropri- 
ate for the ordination of a presbyter ; then it was not. Xo 
one can look at the alterations effected in the Ordinal by the 
reactionary party of the Restoration, and not see that they 
spring from different ideas of the Episcopal office from those 
which the original fi^amers of the Ordinal entertained. 

It is sometimes said that, when the Ordinal was composed, 
Cranmer had changed the opinions which he had expressed 
at an earlier day respecting episcopacy. The extreme Eras- 
tianism which led him to consider the kmg a proper foun- 
tain of episcopal authority, so that even ordination from any 
other source might be dispensed with, is certainly not recog- 
nized in any formal action of the English Church or State, 
unless the commission granted by Henry YHI. to Bonner, 
and that taken out by Cranmer after Henry's death are 

* Annotated Prayer-BooJc^ p. 566. 



TO THE OTHER PROTESTANT CHURCHES. 219 

counted as exceptions.^' Certainly the " Institution of a 
Christian Man " (1536), and the " Necessary Doctrine and 
Erudition of a Christian Man^^ (1543) give to the seculkr 
authority no such function, but reserve it to the church and 
to its ministers. The king's authority enables them to per- 
form acts within his realm, for which the church has pre- 
viously empowered and qualified them. A declaration, 
which defined the relation of the clergy to the civil authority 
in a similar way, was made in 1538, and w^as signed by 
Cranmer, Cromwell, and many others. The opinion of 
Cranmer, which attributes to the king this extraordinary 
power, bears the date of 1540. "Whatever may have been 
his final conviction on this matter, whether he had any set- 
tled view or not, there is no evidence of any modification of 
his ideas upon the relation of bishops to presbyters. The 
essential equality of the two classes of ministers is assumed 
in all the documents to which we have just referred. Just 
before the death of Edward, Cranmer was busy in trying to 
procure a general assembly of representatives of the various 
Protestant churches, for the formation of a common creed. 
He was writing to Melanchthon, Bullinger, and Calvin on the 
subject. Li his letter to Calvin (March 20, 1552), he says : 
" Shall we neglect to call together a godly synod, for the 
refutation of error, and for restoring and propagating the 
truth ? " He is very anxious to procure an agreement on 
the doctrine of the Lord's Supper. If he had suddenly be- 
come convinced of the necessity of episcopacy to the being 
of a church, or if he had attached much importance to the 
differences in polity among the Protestant bodies, it is hai'dly 
possible that he would not have made some allusion to the 
subject, on such an occasion. The representation that he 

* This matter is discussed in tlie Correspondence of Lord Macaulay with 
the Bishop of Exeter (2d. ed., 1861). We have observed a note of Henry 
VIII, to " the Institution of a Christian Man,''"' which appears to suggest 
this lofty notion of his prerogative. Cranmer, Miscellaneous Writings, 
p. 97. 



220 THE RELATION OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 

had changed his opinions when the Ordinal was composed, 
is a pm-e myth. Lasco informs iis that he had special en- 
cdiiragement in the formation of his foreign churches in 
England fi^om Cranmer, as well as from the king's council. 
" The Archbishop of Canterbmy," he says, " promoted it 
with all his might." Lasco was urged to organize his 
chm'ches according " to the divine Word," and not to fol- 
low "the rites of other churches." * 

A modern writer of the Church of England, who is quite 
removed from all sympathy with Puritanism, remarks that, 
" till the passing of the Act of Uniformity in the reign of 
Charles 11. the ordination conveyed by presbyters, though 
resisted by the governors of the church, had never been dis- 
owned by the legislature." However theologians of the 
school of Laud might have exerted their power to exclude 
all ministers not ordained by bishops, the law of England 
could not be used as an instrument for their purpose. But 
the legislation at this epoch was shaped by the extreme par- 
tisans of episcopacy. " The substitution," says the same 
writer,f " in the Prayer-Book, of ' church ' for ' congregation,' 
the specific mention of bishops, priests, and deacons, instead 
of a more general designation, the reintroduction of Bel and 
the Dragon into the Calendar, and other similar alterations, 
though none of them new in principle, seemed designed to 
convince the non-conformists that instead of any wish to ad- 
mit them to further power or privilege within the church, 
there was a distinct and settled desire to restrain or exclude 
them." :j: This writer would not have erred if he had attrib- 
uted these measures to the bitter resentment of a formerly 
depressed, but now victorious party. 

The Revolution of 1688 offered a splendid opportunity for 
undoing this bad work, and for a new measure of compre- 
hension, such as justice and policy alike called for. The 

* See the Wb7^ks of Lasco, ii., 10, 278 seq. 

f Cardwell, History of Conferences, etc. , p. 419. 

ilbid., p. 389. 



TO THE OTHEK PROTESTANT CHUECHES. 221 

king and court favored such a measure. The churclimen 
of noblest gifts, of whom Tihotson was one of the chiefs, 
strove to accompHsh it. Among the concessions which Til- 
lotson proposed, and which are recorded as having been sent 
by him, through Stillingfleet, to the Earl of Portland, stands 
the following : '' That for the future those who have been 
ordained in any of the foreign reformed churches, be not 
required to be reordained here, to render them capable of 
preferment in this church." At first, Tillotson and his as- 
sociates expected to carry the measure which they proposed. 
But it failed. One reason of its failure was the recent for- 
cible expulsion of episcopacy from Scotland, where, as Card- 
well observes, there was " no stated liturgy in general use," 
and where " they allowed the validity of Presbyterian or- 
ders." * Another reason was the fear that the Jacobite 
non- jurors, in case the Liturgy should be altered, would or- 
ganize a formidable schism under the name of the old and 
true Church of England. These considerations lent their 
aid to the party which, on theological grounds, were hostile 
to the offering of any concessions to the dissenters. 

It is, therefore, the misfortune of the Episcopal Church 
that it inherits, not the constitution that was given to it by 
the reformers, but the same as amended for the worse, in 
the middle of the seventeenth century, by the controlling 
faction at the restoration of the Stuarts. But, even in this 
form, although it shuts out from service in the Chui'ch of 
England all ministers not ordained by a bishop, it pronounces 
no condemnation upon the orders of non-episcopal churches. 
In an opinion which was given not long ago by three emi- 
nent ecclesiastical lawyers, not only is the liberal interpreta- 
tion of the statute of the 13th of Elizabeth sanctioned, and 
this statute, in connection with the XXIIId Article, and with 
the practice of the Church of England, prior to the Act of 
Uniformity, declared to preclude the seeming exclusiveness 

* History of Conferences, p. 421. 



222 THE RELATION OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 

of the preface to the Ordinal, but these lawyers express 
doubts whether even now, since the Act of Uniformity, it is 
illegal for non-episcopal ministers to preach occasional ser- 
mons in any church of England, with the permission of the 
incumbent.* 

When a clergyman of the Church of England, like the 
Dean of Canterbury on a late occasion, finds himself in a 
foreign coimtry, there is nothing in the law of England, or 
of the Church of England, to prevent him from performing 
acts of ecclesiastical communion wdth the churches and min- 
isters of non-episcopal bodies. The Episcopal Church in 

* This legal opinion is referred to by Principal Tulloch, Contemporary 
Beview, December, 1871. 

[A writer in The Quarterly Review for October, 1878, after proving- that 
the English Church was in complete communion and sympathy with the 
foreign Protestant churches up to the eve of the Restoration, shows that 
even then the requirement of the Act of Uniformity that ministers should 
be episcopally ordained, carried in it no denial of the vali Mty of Presby- 
terian ordination. " At the very moment of insisting on this qualification 
as a general rule, the Act makes an exception in favor of the members of 
foreign Protestant bodies. Immediately after the clauses which, in Eng- 
land, Wales, and Berwick-upon-Tweed, require Episcopal ordination as a 
preliminary condition to the tenure of a benefice, and to the administra- 
tion of the Lord's Supper, the Act proceeds : — ' Provided that the penal- 
ties in this Act shall not extend to the foreigners or aliens of the foreign 
Eeformed churches — allowed, or to be allowed, by the king's majesty, his 
heirs and successors in England. ' " The rule of Episcopal ordination was 
established for Englishmen ; but the defenders of the Act of Uniformity 
disowned the intention of pronouncing judgment adverse to the orders of 
the foreign churches. Archbishop Bramhall, immediately after the Act 
of Uniformity, required conditional or hypothetical reordination on this 
ground alone, that "we are now to consider ourselves as a national 
church, limited by law." " Non annihilantes priores ordines (si quos 
habuit) nee validitatem aut invaliditatem determinantes " — is his lan- 
guage. The bishops who were consecrated for Scotland in 1661, received 
Episcopal ordination and consecration, but there is no evidence that they 
required Episcopal reordination of the Scottish clergy. The bishops 
-tent into Scotland in 1610, had been sent to preside over Presbyterian 
clergy. The Bishops of Winchester, whose diocese embraces the Channel 
Islands, recognized, from the days of the Reformation, as parish priests, 
the ministers of the French Protestant churches.] 



TO THE OTHER PROTESTANT CHURCHES. 223 

this country is not a national church. It is only one among 
various denominations of Christians, which are equal before 
the law. The first settlers of this country, in establishing 
new political communities, availed themselves of the right, 
universally conceded by Protestants to every people, to 
shape their church polity to suit themselves. Some of them 
were from the Church of Holland ; some were Huguenots ; 
and some were English non-conformists. These Christian 
non-episcopal denominations are not dissenters or schismatics, 
in any proper or intelligible sense of the terms. They stand 
on the same footing in relation to the Church of England as 
do the Lutheran Churches of Germany and Sweden, or the 
Protestant Church of France. Whoever raises an objection 
to such an act as that of the Dean of Canterbury in taking 
part in the communion service with a Presbyterian clergy- 
man, has a right to his notions as to the law of the Church 
of England, but he has no moral right to condemn others, 
who do not share in them, for obeying their o^vn convictions. 
Certain it is that the great divines of the Church of Eng- 
land, for more than a century after the Reformation, would 
have lifted up their hands in amazement on hearing any- 
body object to such an act of fellowship with foreign non- 
episcopal churches as Dean Alford performed at Berlin, or 
Dean Smith in 'New York. The circumstance that the law 
of England requires certain formalities before an Episcopal 
clergyman from abroad can officiate in a pulpit of the nation- 
al church, is not apposite to the case in hand. Apart from 
the difference, that here there is no national church, whose 
clergymen are bound by civil regulations, the analogous case 
would be that of an American Episcopal minister officiating 
in a Methodist or Independent chapel in England. Mere 
questions of ecclesiastical etiquette we must leave for experts 
to determine. Moral obligation, however, is higher than 
conventionalities. A liberal-minded Anglican clergjTiian, 
visiting America, is not bound to submit himself to the su- 
pervision and control of local bishops who hold- that all 



224 THE EELATIOX OF THE CHUECH OF EXGLAXD 

Protestant denoixdnations, except tlieir own, are destitute of 
an authorized ministiy and of the sacraments, and whose 
conceptions of episcopacy are derived, not from divines like 
Crannier, Jewel, Ussher, and ^hately, bnt fi'om the inter- 
pretations and theories of" Land and Sheldon. John Wesley 
was complained of for preaching in parishes, not in the 
chiH'ch but in the open au', and without an invitation fi"om 
the incimibent. He answered that, being excluded fi-om the 
parish churches, if he preached nowhere else, he would be 
silenced. If he had comphed with cmTent notions of regu- 
larity and eticjuette, where would ]Methodism have been ? 
And what would the Chiux-h of England have been, without 
the reactionary influence of that Reformation ? So now, 
the demands of Christian cathohcity may justly override the 
prescriptions of a punctilious eticjuette ; especially when 
these are acknowledged by only one of the parties con- 
cerned. 

The Church of England, notwithstanding all its defects, 
is a great and noble institution. TTe wish it no evil. But 
it is now tasting the fi'uit of errors in the past. On three 
great occasions at least, golden opportunities for a larger 
comprehension were presented, and those opportunities were 
cast away. The first was at the accession of James I. when 
the millenary petition was offered, and when, at the Hamp- 
ton Comt Conference, to the unspeakable delight of a knot 
of partisan and sycophantic bishops, that '•' Solomon of the 
age '-' bullied the Puritans. The second was at the restora- 
tion of the throne, at the accession of Charles H., when his 
most solemn pledges were violated, and when the Savoy 
Conference was attended by another victory of a bigoted 
faction. The third was at the Pevolution, when the same 
faction, aided by peculiar cu'cmnstances to which we have 
adverted, gained another triumph. At both of these last 
epochs, the noblest and wisest men of the clergy and laity 
were the advocates of a liberal policy. Xow, nearly half of 
the English nation is arrayed in hostility to the national 



TO THE OTHER PEOTESTANT CHURCHES. 225 

church. If the Church of England should be disestab- 
lished, it would most probably be divided. It is hardly pos- 
sible that the party which cleaves to that Judaizing type of 
religion, which is an heirloom from Pharisaism, and is an eter- 
nal foe of the Gospel — as truly so to-day as it was when Paul 
denounced it without stint, in the Epistle to the Galatians — 
should abide in the same communion with the adherents 
of the principles of the Reformation. The extreme Ritu- 
alists, with their candles, " their flexions and genuflexions," 
their elevation of ceremonies above truth and godliness, will 
form a church by themselves, or go back to the Pope, where 
they belong. Under the present circumstances, the signs of 
the times being what they are, and when the Romanizing 
faction are active, it is not strange that enlightened men of 
the Low Church and Broad Church parties should be in- 
clined to draw closer to the other Protestant bodies, which 
hold the same faith, and should desire to see the Church of 
England abandon the habit of seclusion, which is not re- 
quired by her constitution, but which was forced upon her 
in the servile days of the Stuarts, and resume her old posi- 
tion by the side of her sisters of the Reformation. Such 
men feel that the contests of the seventeenth century are 
over, and that the passions engendered by them should die 
out, and that the barriers that were erected by partisan feel- 
ing should be levelled. In each of the branches of the 
High Church party, there are good men. But with the 
principles of this party it is impossible for a genuine Prot- 
estantism to feel any sympathy. The astronomers tell us 
that any star, however diminutive it might be, on which we 
should place ourselves, would appear to be the centre of the 
universe, and that the whole creation would seem to re- 
volve around the particular spot where we stand. It must 
be through some similar delusion that this party of the An- 
glican Church, a party which constitutes but an insignificant 
fraction of the Christian world, while it turns its back on 
the Protestant churches, and, in turn, is spurned by the 
10* 



226 THE RELATION OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND, ETO 



Clmrcli of Rome, jet imagines itself the centre and embodi- 
ment of catholic imitj. Archbishop Whately was not a 
man of genius, but he was a man of remarkable good sense. 
In his work on the Kingdom of Christy he shows that the 
Articles of the Church of England "rest the claims of 
ministers, not on some supposed sacramental virtue, trans- 
mitted from hand to hand in unbroken succession from the 
apostles, in a chain, of which if any one link be ever doubt- 
ful, a distressing uncertainty is thrown over all Christian 
ordinances, sacraments, and church-privileges forever ; but, 
on the fact of those ministers being the regularly- appointed 
officers of a regular Christian community." Those, he says, 
who seek to take what they call higher ground, " are in fact 
subverting the principles both of our own church in particu- 
lar, and of every Christian Church that claims the inherent 
rights belonging to a community, and confirmed by the sanc- 
tion of God's Word as contained in the Holy Scriptures." 
" It is curious," adds Whately, " how very common it is for 
any sect or party to assume a title indicative of the very ex- 
cellence in which they are especially deficient, or strongly 
condemnatory of the very errors with which they are espe- 
cially chargeable .... The phrase ^ Catholic ' religion 
{i. 6., ' Universal '), is the most commonly in the mouths of 
those Avho are the most limited and exchisive in their views, 
and who seek to shut out the largest number of Christian 
communities from the Gospel covenant. ' Schism,' again, is 
by none more loudly reprobated than by those who are not 
only the immediate authors of schism, but the advocates of 
principles tending to generate and perpetuate schisms with- 
out end." ■^'' It would be well for the party, which Whately 
here delineates in language not more caustic than it is just, 
to learn, that to take a part for the whole is the very es- 
sence of a sect. 

* Kingdom of Christ (Am. ed.), pp. 126, 127, 128. 



THE PlilLOSOPHY OF JONATHAN EDWAKDS. 227 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF JONATHAN EDWARDS.* 

It was pretty clearly implied in a remark of Dugald Stew- 
art that up to his time Jonathan Edwards was the only 
philosopher of note that America had produced. " He," it 
is added, '' in logical acuteness and subtilty, does not yield 
to any disputant bred in the universities of Europe." f 
This was said more than a half century ago ; but all will 
agree that Edwards even now is incomparably the foremost 
among those who have cultivated metaphysical studies on 
this side of the Atlantic. He was the pioneer in this de- 
partment, and the same might also be said of his relation to 
our literature generally. " The foundation of the literature 
of independent America," writes F. D. Maurice, speaking of 
the treatise on the Will, " was laid in a book which was 
published while it was a subject of the British crown." :|: 
Edwards is an example of that rare mingling of intellectual 
subtilty and spiritual insight, of logical acumen with mysti- 
cal fervor, which make up together the largest mental en- 
dowment, and qualify their possessor for the highest achieve- 
ments in the field of thought. Augustine is an instance of 
this remarkable blending of the rational with the mystical, 
this union of light and heat. In his Confessions^ in the 
midst of glowing utterances of adoration, transporting visions 
of a glory unseen, he turns off into a speculation upon the 
nature of time, or an argument upon the infinitude of the 
divine attributes. In the typical men of the scholastic age, 
Anselm and Aquinas, there is found the same combination 

* An Article in The North American Review for Marcli, 1879. 
f Stewart's Works (Hamilton's ed. ), vol. i., p. 424. 
X Modern PJdlosophy, p. 469. 



228 THE PHILOSOPHY OF JONATHAN EDWAEDS. 

of intellect and feeling. The understanding follows out its 
problems, being quickened and illuminated, yet not in the 
least blinded, from a deeper source of light. The lack of 
the one element, that of devout sensibility, was the weak- 
ness of Abelard ; a degree of deficiency in the other, that of 
dialectic enterprise and keenness, lessened the greatness of 
Bernard. A like conjunction of diverse qualities appears in 
the most subtile, the most powerful, the most interesting of 
living English theologians, John Henry JSTewman. Let any 
competent student take up Edwards's treatise on the Will, 
and mark the sharp, unrelenting logic with which he pur- 
sues his opponents through all the intricate windings of that 
perplexed controversy, and then turn to the same author's 
sermon on the Nature and Reality of Sjpiritual Light. 
It is like passing from the pages of Aristotle to a sermon of 
John Tauler ; only that, unlike most of the mystics, Edwards 
knows how to analyze the experiences of the heart, and to 
use them as data for scientific conclusions. He has left a 
record of meditations on "the beauty and sweetness" of 
divine things, when even the whole face of nature was trans- 
figured to his vision. We see this keen dialectician, whose 
power of subtile argument Sir James Mackintosh pronoun- 
ces to have been " perhaps unmatched, certainly unsur- 
passed, among men," ■^.melted in an ecstasy of emotion. 
We shall have occasion to point out the effect of this 
characteristic upon his ethical and religious philosophy. 

Edwards was only thirteen when he entered Yale Col- 
lege ; and it was while he was a member of college that he 
committed to writing philosophical remarks that would do 
credit to the ablest and maturest mind. He is one of the 
most astonishing examples of precocious mental develop- 
ment of which we have any record. Pascal is in some re- 
spects a parallel instance. He was only twelve years old 
when he framed, from his own ingenious observations, a dis- 

* Progress of Ethical PMlosopJiy^ p. 108 (PhHadelphia ed., 1833). 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF JONATHAN EDWAEDS. 229 

sei'tation upon sound, and when he discovered anew, without 
aid, the truths of geometry as far as the thirty-second propo- 
sition of the first book of Euclid. It was chiefly as a 
mathematical prodigy that Pascal was distinguished in his 
boyhood. Edwards, at the age of twelve, wrote a letter, 
which is really a well-reasoned scientific paper, on the habits 
of the spider, as ascertained from his own singularly accu- 
rate observations.* His copious Notes on physics and 
natural science, which afford a striking proof of his intellec- 
tual grasp and versatility, were written, at least in great 
part, before he left college. But prior to the composition 
of these, he set down, under the head of Mind, a series 
of metaphysical definitions and discussions, which, as emana- 
ting from a boy of sixteen or seventeen, are truly marvellous. 
In them may be found the germs of much that is developed 
afterwards in his theological writings. 

Edwards was a Berkeleian. A large part of these juvenile 
papers are devoted to the elucidation and defence of the 
doctrine that the percepts of sense have no existence inde- 
pendently of mind ; that, although they are not originated 
by us, but by a power without, that power is not a material 
substance or substratum, but the will of God acting in a 
uniform method. Sensations are the divine ideas, commu- 
nicated to creaturely minds by the will of Him in whom 
these ideas inhere, and by whom they all consist. " The 
world is an ideal one ; and the law of creating and the succes- 
sion of these ideas is constant and regular." f If we suppose 
that the world is mental in the sense explained, natural 
philosophy is not in the least affected. % The common ques- 
tions which are brought forward by way of objection — as, 
"What becomes of material things when we do not see 
them ? " — he ingeniously answers, and in a tone that renders 
his own belief in their nullity plain. He quotes from Cud- 

* In D wight' 8 Life of Edwards, chap. ii. 
f Ibid., p. 669. 
X Ibid. 



230 THE PHILOSOPHY OF JONATHAN EDWAEDS. 

worth Plato's famous passage about the cave, to illustrate his 
doctrine that material things are shadows and not substan- 
ces. The substance of all bodies is declared to be "the in- 
finitely exact and precise divine idea, together with an 
answerable, perfectly exact, precise, and stable will, with re- 
spect to corresponding communications to created minds, 
and effects on their minds." ^ The objection that the 
ideal theory is contradicted by common-sense, he confutes 
by showing how erroneous, on any theory, is the vulgar im- 
pression as to the character of our perce23tion of distant ob- 
jects, and by exhibiting the Berkeleian discovery, which 
Professor Bowen calls the one great psychological discovery 
of later times, f that our impression of objects of sense 
from visual perception is totally diverse from that given 
through the sense of touch. Take away color, take away 
the secondary qualities of matter which are confessed to be 
relative — view matter as one who is born blind would re- 
gard it — and we have only resistance, with the connected 
ideas of place and of space. Matter is thus known to be 
something quite different from what the vulgar imagine it 
to be. So the way is opened for a more just appreciation 
of the ideal theory, and for the conclusion, which Edwards 
considers to be the truth, that there are only spiritual beings 
or substances in the universe. 

It is important to decide whether Edwards adhered to the 
Berkeleian doctrine in after-life. It is found in the Hates 
on Natural Philosojjhy, as well as in the manuscript entitled 
Mind. These, however, were nearly contemporaneous. 
But in the last-mentioned manuscript there are passages 
inserted of a somewhat later date ; and in these the same 
doctrine is defended. % Moreover, I find in the treatise on 
Original Sin, one of his latest compositions and a posthu- 
mous publication, this remark : " The course of natm^e is 

* Dwight's Life, p. 674. 

f Modern Phi/osophy, p. 141. 

j See Dwight's Life, p. 674. 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF JONATHAN EDWAKDS. 231 

demonstrated by late improvements in philosophy to be in- 
deed what our author himself says it is, viz., nothing but the 
established order of the agency and operation of the Author 
of nature." '^' Here it is altogether probable that the refer- 
ence is to the philosophy of Berkeley. With this passage 
may be compared incidental statements on perception, in the 
treatise on the will, which, however, do not go so far as nec- 
essarily to imply the Berkeleian theory, f 

A less important yet interesting question relates to the 
particular source from which EdAvards derived his acquaint- 
ance with Berkeley. Professor Fraser, in his very thorough 
and instructive biography of this philosopher, conjectures 
that it may have been through the influence of Dr. Samuel 
Johnson, who was a personal friend of the philosopher, and 
adopted his system. Johnson was a tutor at Yale from 1716 
to 1719, when Edwards was a student. But, from 1717 to 
1719, a portion of the students, of whom Edwards was one, 
were taught at "Wethersfield, Johnson remaining in ^ew 
Haven. The seceding students who went to Wethersfield 
did not regard Tutor Johnson with favor. IS^or is it certain 
that he had himself espoused the Berkeleian theory at that 
time. But the Theory of Yision was given to the world in 
1709, and the Principles of Human Knowledge in 1710 ; so 
that it is not improbable that copies of these works had 
come into the hands of Edwards, independently of Johnson. 
They found in him an eager and congenial disciple. 

Locke is the author w^hose stimulating influence on Ed- 
wards is most obvious. E[e read Locke when he was four- 
teen years old, with a delight greater, to use his own words, 
" than the most greedy miser finds when gathering up hand- 
fuls of silver and gold from some newly discovered treas- 
ure.":}: Deeply affected as Edwards was by this great 
writer, he read Locke with independence, and not only pur- 

* Dwight's edition, vol. ii., p. 540. 
f Ibid., pp. 206, 207. 
X D wight's Life, p. 30. 



232 THE PHILOSOPHY OF JONATHAN EDWARDS. 

sued a theological direction quite opposite to that of his 
master, but also criticises not unfrequently his doctrines and 
arguments. For example, he exposes the fallacy of the il- 
lustration by which Locke would support his distinction be- 
tween preference and choice ; and he likewise shows that 
Locke does not rightly define the difference between desire 
and will. * In this last point, Locke goes counter to the 
description which he gives of the will in the context, accord- 
ing to which it cannot be at variance with predominant de- 
sire. Edwards could easily detect the inconsistency of 
Locke in postulating a power to suspend the prosecution of 
a desire ; since this act of suspension must itself be a choice, 
determined, like every other, on Locke's principles, by the 
strongest motive. It is to Locke's chapter on Power that 
Edwards was most indebted for quickening suggestions. 
This discussion, as we are explicitly informed, caused him to 
perceive that an evil man may properly be said to have a 
natural or physical ability to be good. Locke anticipates 
Edwards in combating the proposition that choice springs 
from a previous state of indifference, an absolute neutrality 
of feeling, either preceding the act of judgment or inter- 
posed betw^een that act and the act of will. Locke's con- 
ception of liberty as relating exclusively to the effects of 
choice, or events consecutive to volition, and not to the origi- 
nation of choice itself, is precisely coincident with that of 
Edwards. " Freedom," says Locke, " consists in the de- 
pendence of the existence, or non-existence, of any action 
upon our volition of it." Locke asserts that the question 
whether the will itself be free or not is unreasonable and 
unintelligible ; and he precedes Edwards in seeking to fasten 
upon one who asks whether a man is free to choose in a 
particular way rather than in the opposite, the absurdity of 
assuming the possibility of an infinite series of choices, or of 
inquiring whether an identical proposition is true. " To 

* Vol. ii., pp. 16, 17. 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF JONATHAN EDWARDS. 233 

choose as one pleases," if it does not mean " to choose as one 
chooses to choose " — which involves the absurdity of a series 
of choices ad infinitum — can only mean " to choose as one 
actually chooses," a futile identical proposition. In the 
psychology of the act of choice there is no essential differ- 
ence between Locke and Edwards. Both represent the 
mind as perpetually moved by the desire of good. Locke's 
invariable antecedent of choice, "uneasiness of desire," or 
last dictate of the understanding as to good or happiness, 
does not differ from Edwards's " view of the mind as to the 
greatest apparent good." In one grand peculiarity they 
coincide : will and sensibility are confounded. The twofold 
division of the powers of the mind still prevailed in philoso- 
phy. We are endued with understanding and will ; and 
mental phenomena which do not belong to the understand- 
ing are relegated to the will. It is impossible to ignore 
wholly the existence of a third department of our nature ; 
and the principal inconsistency of Edwards in his discussions 
of this subject, in his various writings, is the failure per- 
sistently to identify or persistently to distinguish voluntary 
and involuntary inclinations. Inclination and choice are 
treated as indistinguishable,* and yet the one is spoken of 
as the antecedent and cause of the other. The ambiguity of 
" inclination " and of its synonyms has been a fruitful source 
of confusion. It was reserved for the metaphysicians of the 
present century to establish the bounds between sensibilit}^, 
an involuntary function, and will. It is important, however, 
not to overlook the distinction between those choices which 
are permanent states of the will, and constitute the abiding 
principles of character and motives of action, and the sub- 
sidiary purposes and volitions which they dictate. It is 
right to add that, however Edwards may have owed to 
Locke pregnant hints on the subject of the will, these fell 
into the richest soil ; and the doctrine of philosophical ne- 

* See, e. g., vol. v., pp. 10, 11. 



234 THE PHILOSOPHY OF JONATHAN EDWAEDS. 

cessitj was elaborated and fortified bj the younger writer 
with a much more rigid logic and a far wider sweep of ar- 
gument than can be claimed for Locke's discussion. Locke 
modified his opinions fi^om one edition to another ; and his 
correspondence with Limborch discloses the fact that he was 
himseK not satisfied with the views of the subject which h*e 
had presented in his work. The conviction of Edwards, on 
the other hand, was attended by no misgivings, and stayed 
with him to the end of life. 

The resemblance of Edwards's treatise on the Will to the 
treatises of Hobbes and Collins on the same subject is another 
topic that merits attention. As to Hobbes, Edwards has oc- 
casion to observe that he had never read him. There is no 
probability that he had ever seen a copy of Collins's Inquiry. 
Edwards was not the man to conceal a real obligation. His 
intellectual resources were too large to make it requisite for 
him to borrow, and no one has ever questioned his thorough 
honesty. Whatever similarity is found to exist between 
him and the authors referred to is accidental. Hobbes, 
like Edwards, holds that " he i?>free to do a thing, that he 
may do if he have the will to do it, and may forbear if he 
have the will to forbear " - — that is, freedom is concerned 
not with the genesis, but with the event, of the choice. 
'' The last dictate of the judgment concerning the good or 
bad that may follow on any action," in agreement with Ed- 
wards, " is made the proximate efficient cause of the will's 
determination on one side or the other." f The objection 
that counsels, admonitions, commands, and the like, are vain 
and useless on the necessitarian doctrine, is met by Hobbes 
with the retort that, on no other doctrine, can they have any 
eifect at all. This is precisely in the manner of Edwards. 
The argument for necessity from the principle of causation, 
applied to the determinations of the will, is substantially the 

* Works (Moles wortli's edition), vol. ii, p. 410. 
t Ibid., p. 247. 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF JONATHAN EDWARDS. 235 

same in both writers. Collins brings forward the same 
definition of liberty as " a power in man to do as he w^ills, 
or pleases." ''^ He applies, also, the reductio ad dbsurdum to 
the statement that a man can choose as he pleases : it is an 
identical proposition, f He seeks to prove the necessity of 
volitions by bringing them under the law of cause and effect, 
and by driving his antagonists into the admission that the 
mind is determined by causal agency to choose so and not 
otherwise, the alternative being atheism. :j: This corresponds 
closely to the reasoning of Edwards. Their arguments from 
the divine foreknowledge are in substance the same. § 
Things must be certain in order to be foreseen, and they are 
not certain unless antecedent causes render them certain. 
Persuasions, appeals, and laws, are addressed to men only on 
the supposition that they tend to produce effects, or contain 
within them causal energy. These coincidences between 
Edwards and the authors above named are really not re- 
markable. The defenders of the doctrine of necessity nat- 
urally take one path. They demand an explanation of the 
determination of the will, so far as it involves the election 
of one thing in preference to another. They deny that the 
mere power of willing accounts for the sjpecification of the 
choice, by which one thing is taken and another rejected. 
Taking this weapon, the axiom of cause and effect, they 
chase their opponents out of every place of refuge. Edwards 
is peculiar only in the surpassing keenness and unsparing 
persistency with which he carries on the combat, even an- 
ticipating defences against his logic which had not been as 
yet set up. He was anxious to demolish forts even before they 
were erected. His habit of taking up all conceivable objec- 
tions to the proposition which he advocates, in advance of the 
opponent, is one main source of his strength as a disputant. 
He not only fires his own gun, but spikes that of the enemy. 
It is far from beins: true that Edwards was the first to 



* Inquiry (London, 1717), p. 2. 

f Ibid., p. 41. ^: Ibid., pp. 58, 59. § Ibid., p. 83 seq. 



236 THE PHILOSOPHY OF JONATHAN EDWARDS. 

assert the impropriety of tlie term '' necessary " as a predi- 
cate of acts of will, on the ground that necessity presup- 
poses an opposition of the will, which, of course, is precluded 
when the occurrence in question is itself a choice. I am 
constrained to that to which my will is opposed, but which 
nevertheless occurs. That is necessary " which choice can- 
not prevent." * The same objection is made to the terms 
" irresistible," " unavoidable," " inevitable," " unable," and 
their synonyms, as descriptive of the determinations of the 
will. I do not find in Augustine this criticism of the above- 
mentioned terms in any explicit form ; yet there lurks con- 
tinually under his statements the feeling that underlies this 
criticism ; as, for instance, when he speaks of " the most 
blessed necessity " of not sinning, imder which the Deity is 
placed, " if necessity it is to be caUed " — " si necessitas dicenda 
est."f But the objection to all terms implying coercion, 
especially to the word " necessity," is set forth by Thomas 
Aquinas as clearly as by Edwards. " That which is moved 
by another," writes Thomas, "is said to be constrained 
(cogi), if it is moved against its own inclination (contra in- 
clinationem propriam) ; but if it be moved by another which 
gives to it its own inclination (quod sibi dat propriam incli- 

nationem), it is not said to be constrained So God 

in moving the will does not constrain it, because he gives to 
it its own inclination. To be moved voluntarily is to be 
moved of one's self, that is, from an internal principle ; but 
that intrinsic principle can be moved by another principle 
extrinsic ; and so to he moved of one's self is not inconsistent 
with heing moved hy another.'''' X 

It is the doctrine of Edwards, then, that the will is de- 
termined by " that view of the mind which has the greatest 
degree of previous tendency to excite volition." § This an- 

* Edwards's WorJcs, vol. ii., p. 84. 

f Op. imp.,i., 103. 

X Summa, Part I., Question 5, Article 4. 

§ Works^ vol. ii. , p. 25. 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF JONATHAN EDWARDS. 237 

tecedent mental state secures the result by a strictly causal 
efficiency. Moral necessity is distinguished from the natural 
necessity that prevails in material nature, in that the former 
is concerned with mental phenomena, with motives and the 
volitions which they produce ; but the difference " does not 
lie so much in the nature of the connection, as in the two 
terms connected.^'' '^ It is cause and effect in both cases. 
To the objection that morality and responsibility are sub- 
verted by this doctrine, Edwards replies that men are re- 
sponsible for their choices, no matter what the causes of 
them may be ; that moral quality inheres in the choices 
themselves, and not in their causes. As liberty " does not 
consider anything of the cause of the choice," f so it is with 
moral account ableness, with merit and ill-desert. Sufficient 
that the choice exists in the man as an operation of will. :|: 
On no other hypothesis than the necessitarian did Edwards 
think it possible to hold to the omniscience of God and his. 
universal providence and government. Principles which 
freethinkers maintained for other ends, he defended as the 
indispensable foundations of religion. 

Edwards came forward as the champion of Calvinism 
against Whitby and its other English assailants. He in- 
tended "to bring the late objections and outcries against 
Calvinistic divinity to the test of the strictest reasoning." § 
He scattered to the winds the loosely defined notions of 
free-will which made it include the choosing of choices, and 
choice from a previous indifference, or apart from all influ- 
ence of motives. It is not true that, out of various possible 
choices, the mind decides upon, i. e., chooses one. Nor is 
it true that the act of choice starts into being independently 
of inducements. Although his adversaries must have felt 
that he took advantage of the infirmities of language, and 
confuted what they said rather than what they meant, yet it 

* Works, vol. ii., p. 34. f Ibid., p. 39, cf. p. 191. 

tibid., p. 185 seq. (Part IV., § 1). 

§ Letter to Erskine. Dwight's Life, p. 497. 



238 THE PHILOSOPHY OF JONATHAN EDWAEDS. 

is quite untrue tliat lie was guilty of any conscious unfairness. 
He was not tlie man purposely to surround himself with 

. . . . " mist, the common gloss 
Of theologians." 

He had no faith in their conception of fi-eedom, however 
it might be formulated. But, in prosecuting his purpose, 
Edwards set up a philosophy of the will which is not conso- 
nant with the doctrine that had been held by the main body 
of Augustinian theologians. It is true that the "Wittenberg 
Reformers, at the outset, and Calvin, in his earlier writings, 
especially the Institutes, pushed predestination to the supra- 
lapsarian extreme. The doctrine of Augustine, however, 
and the more general doctrine even of Calvinistic theolo- 
gians, the doctrine of Calvin himself and of the Westmin- 
ster Assembly's creeds, is that a certain liberty of will ad 
utrumms, or the power of contrary choice, had belonged to 
the first man, but had disappeared in the act of transgression, 
which brought his will into bondage to evil. It was the 
common doctrine, too, that in mankind now, while the will 
is enslaved as regards religious obedience, it remains free 
outside of this province, in all civil and secular concerns. In 
this wide domain the power of contrary choice still subsists. 
But Edwards's conception of the will admits of no such dis- 
tinction. Freedom is as predicable of men now as of Adam 
before he sinned ; of religious morality as of the affairs of 
worldly business ; of man as of God. He asserts most em- 
phatically that he holds men to be possessed now of all 
the liberty which it is possible to imagine, or which it ever 
entered into the heart of any man to conceive."^ Of course, 
there can have been no loss of liberty, no forfeiture of a 
prerogative once possessed. Philosophical necessity belongs 
iV» the very nature of the will. Therefore it binds all 
spiritual beings alike. This is not the philosophy of Augus- 



Letter to Erskine, vol. ii., p. 293. 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF JONATHAN EDWAEDS. 239 

tine or of the Westminster divines. They held to a muta- 
bility of will once belonging to man, but now lost ; to a 
freedom pertaining at present to men in one sphere of ac- 
tion, but not in another. 

Refraining, for the present, from comments on the drift 
of this philosophical creed, we follow this acute and power- 
ful thinker into another but adjacent field. Not satisfied 
with the timid, half-hearted way in which Watts, Doddridge, 
and other English Calvinists of that day, had attenuated the 
doctrine of original sin, in deference to the attacks of the 
Arminians, Edwards undertook to reclaim the ground which 
had been surrendered, and to put to rout the confident as- 
sailants. For their " glorying and insults " he believed 
there was no foundation.* He took up a great theme, be- 
longing alike to philosophy and theology, the dominion of 
moral evil in the race of mankind. It cannot be said that 
he does not squarely grapple with his adversaries. He fully 
understood himself, and had the courage w^hich comes from 
undoubting conviction. He invited for his arguments the 
closest scrutiny, and only deprecated the objection that they 
were " metaphysical," as vague and impertinent. " The ques- 
tion is not," he on one occasion remarks, '' whether what is 
said be metaphysics, physics, logic, or mathematics, Latin, 
English, French, or Mohawk, but whether the reasoning be 
good and the arguments truly conclusive." f His ardor is a 
white heat which never moves him to substitute declamation 
for reasoning. In this treatise on '' Original Sin," he blinks 
no difficulties ; but, having established by cogent reasoning 
and by Scripture, with appeals to heathen as well as Chris- 
tian authority, the tremendous fact of sin, as a universal 
characteristic of mankind, he endeavors to prove that men 
are truly, and not by any legal fiction, judged to be sinful 
from the start, and literally gnilty of the primal transgres- 
sion. To this end, he seeks to bring the continuance of sin 

* D wight's Life, p. 569. f Works, vol. ii., p. 474. 



240 THE PHILOSOPHY OF JONATHAN EDWAEDS. 

in the individuals of the race, onward from the beginning of 
their personal life, nnder the familiar law of habit. It is 
analogous to the self -perpetuation of any habit which arises 
from an initial act. To prove that Adam's act was our ^ct, 
he launches out into a bold speculation on the nature of 
identity. Personal identity, he asserts, is the effect of the 
divine will and ordinance. If it consists in the sameness of 
consciousness, that is kept up by divine acts from moment to 
moment. If it be thought to consist in the sameness of sub- 
stance, even this is due to the perpetual divine preservation ; 
and preservation is not to be distuiguished fi'om constantly 
repeated acts of creation. Our identity is a constituted 
identity, dependent upon the creative will, and in this sense 
arbitrary, yet conformed to an idea of order. So the indi- 
viduals of the human race are the continuation of Adam ; 
they truly — that is, by the will and appointment of God — 
constitute one moral whole. It is strictly true that all par- 
ticipated in the act by which "the species first rebelled 
against God." ^ We are not condemned for another's evil 
choice, but for our o^vn, and the principle of sin within us is 
only the natural consequence of that original act. Time 
counts for nothing : the first rising of evil inclination in us 
is one and the same with the first rising of evil inclination 
in Adam ; it is the members participating in, and consent- 
ing to, the act of the head. The habit of sinning follows 
upon this first rising of evil inclination, in us as in Adam. 
Such is the constitution of things ; and on the di\dne con- 
stitution, the persistence of individuality, of personal con- 
sciousness and identity, equally depends. It is to be noticed 
that, in defence of his realistic theory, Edwards does not lay 
hold of the traducian hypothesis of the evolution of souls. 
He admits that souls are created ; but so are consciousness 
and the substance of our individual being at every succes- 
sive instant of time. Like Anselm, and the schoolmen gen- 

* Vol. ii., p. 543. 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF JONATHAN EDWARDS. 241 

erally, he is a creationist. It is evident that Locke's cnrious 
chapter on Identity and Diversity '^ put Edwards on the 
track on which he advanced to these novel opinions. Locke 
there attempts to prove that sameness of consciousness is the 
sole bond of identity, and that identity would remain were 
consciousness disjoined from one substance and connected 
with another. Edwards's opinion is peculiar to himself, but 
there is no reason to doubt that the initial impulse to the re- 
flections that issued in it was imparted by the discussion of 

Locke.f _. :.. . ^ _ ^-- - 

We now turn to the ethical theory of Edwards. In his 
masterly treatise on the Nature of True Virtue, he does 
not content himself, as philosophers before him had so often 
done, with the inquiry, What is the abstract quality of vir- 
tue, or the foundation of moral obligation ? but he sets forth 
the nature of virtue in the concrete, or the principle of 
goodness. This he finds to be benevolence, or love to intel- 
ligent being. It is love to the entire society of intelligent 
beings according to their rank, or, to use his phrase, " the 
amount of being " which belongs to them. It is thus a pro- 
portionate love; supreme and absolute as regards God, 
limited as regards inferior beings. Under this conception, 
ethics and religion are inseparately connected. True love 
to man is love to him as being, or as having being in him- 
self, and is indissolubly connected, if it be real and genuine, 
with a proportionately greater love to God. This benevo- 
lence, which embraces in itself all goodness, is the fountain 
and essence of specific virtues. It is described as a propen- 
sity to being, a union of heart to intelligent being, a con- 
sent to being, which prompts one to seek the welfare of the 
objects loved. It is not synonymous with delight in the 
happiness of others, but is the spring of that delight. J^ow, 

* Locke's Essay, book ii,, c. 27. 

[f The influence of Berkeley as well as Locke is seen in Edwards's spec- 
ulation. It is really the application of the Berkeleian idea to the mind — 
a step which Berkeley himself had not taken.] 
11 



242 THE PHILOSOPHY OF JONATHAN EDWAEDS. 

he who actually exercises this love delights in the same love 
when it is seen in others ; and this delight induces and in- 
volves an additional love to them, the love of complacency. 
There is a spiritual beauty in benevolence which is perceived 
only through experience. The relish which this beauty ex- 
cites and gratifies is possible only to him who is himself be- 
nevolent. There is a rectitude in benevolence, a fitness to 
the nature of the soul and the nature of things ; and the 
perception of this rectitude awakens the sense of obligation, 
and binds all men to be benevolent. The natural conscience 
makes a man uneasy " in the consciousness of doing that to 
others which he should be angry with them for doing to 
him, if they were in his case, and he in theirs." This feel- 
ing may be resolved into a consciousness of being inconsis- 
tent with himself, of a disagreement with his own nature. 
With the feeling of approbation and disapprobation, there 
is joined a sense of desert, which consists in a natural agree- 
ment, proportion, and harmony between malevolence or in- 
jury and resentment and punishment. An essential ele- 
ment in Edwards's whole theory is this double excellence of 
universal love : first, a rightness recognized by all men, 
whether they be good or bad ; and a peculiar, transcendent 
beauty revealed only to the good, or on the condition of the 
exercise of love as a practical principle. Of the natural con- 
science in its relation to love he savs : " Althouo^h it sees 
not, or rather does not taste its primary and essential beauty, 
i. e., it tastes no sweetness in benevolence to being in gen- 
eral, simply considered, for nothing but general benevolence 
itself can do that ; yet this natural conscience, common to 
mankind, may ajTprove it fi'om that uniformity, equality, 
and justice, which there is in it ; and the demerit which is 
seen in the contrary, consisting in the natural agreement be- 
tween the contrary, and being hated of being-in-general." * 
The moral sense which is common to all men, and the spir- 

* Vol. iii., p. 132. 



THE PIJILOSOPHT OF JONATHAN EDWAKDS. 243 

itiial sense which belongs to the benevolent, may be called 
sentiments ; bnt not with the idea that they are merely sub- 
jective or arbitrary, and not correspondent to the objective 
reality. The quality of rightness and the quality of spirit- 
ual beauty inhere in love as intrinsic attributes. By means 
of this distinction between the intrinsic rectitude and the 
spiritual beauty of the virtuous principle, Edwards built up 
a foundation for his doctrine of spiritual light, or for that 
mystical side which has been pointed out in his character 
and in his conception of religion. The reaction of benevo- 
lence against its opposite as being unrighteous and offensive 
to the sense of spiritual beauty, and as an injury to the 
beings on whom benevolence fixes its regard, is a form of 
hatred. This hatred on the part of God and of all benevo- 
lent beings toward " the statedly and irreclaimably evil" in- 
spires a feeling of satisfaction in their punishment. Those 
descriptions in Edwards of the sufferings of incorrigible 
evil-doers in the future world, and of the contentment of 
the righteous at beholding them, which grate on the sensi- 
bility of most of the present generation, he felt no difficulty 
in reconciling with the doctrine that impartial and univer- 
sal love is the essence of virtue. 

The disinterested love which is identical with virtue is the 
antipode of self-love. If self-love signifies nothing but a 
man's loving what is pleasing to him, this is only to say that 
he loves what he loves ; since, with Edwards, loving an ob- 
ject is synonymous with being pleased with it. It is " the 
same thing as a man's having a faculty of will." * But the 
proper meaning of self-love is regard to self in distinction 
from others, or regard to some private interest. Edwards 
undertakes to resolve all particular affections which do not 
involve a regard to universal being, and a willingness that 
the subordinate interest should give way whenever it com- 
petes with the rights and the interests of the whole, into 

* Vol. iii., p. 118. 



244 THE PHILOSOPHY OF JONATHAN EDWARDS. 

self-love. This is true of habits of feeling and actions that 
are done at the dictate of natm^al conscience, which may be 
looked upon "as in some sort arising fi^om self-love, or self- 
union," or the mieasj consciousness of being inconsistent 
with one's self. The most questionable f eatm*e in Edwards's 
whole theory is the position to which the natm-al perception 
of right and sense of moral obligation are reduced, in order 
to exalt the sense of spiritual beauty as the one necessary at- 
tendant of true virtue. But he is not justly chargeable with 
displacing the particular affections — ^love of family, patriot- 
ism, and the Kke — although Robert Hall thinks that God- 
win built up his ethical notions on the reasoning of Ed- 
wards, as Godwin avowedly leaned upon Edwards in his ex- 
position of liberty and necessity. * 

In the dissertation on God)s Chief End in Creation^ 
which, like the essay on the Nature of True Virtue, was 
posthumous, Edwards " o'erleaped these earthy bounds," and 
sought to unveil the motive of the Deity in calling the uni- 
verse into being. He rejects every notion of an indigence, 
insufficiency, and mutability in God, or any dependence of 
the Creator on the creature for any part of his perfection or 
happiness. Every pantheistic hypothesis of this nature he 
repels. God must be conceived of as estimating the sum 
total of his own excellence at its real worth. This regard 
for his glory, or his glorious perfections, not because they 
are his, but for their own sake, is not an unworthy feeling 
or motive to action. The disposition to communicate the 
infinite fulness of good which inheres eternally in himself, 
adj extra, is an original property of his nature. This incited 
him to create the world. That his attributes should be ex- 
erted and should be known and esteemed, and become a 
~ source of joy to other beings, is fit and proper. " His delight 
in his creatures does not militate against his independence, 

♦Compare Hall's ^York& (Bohn's edition), p. 284; Godwin's Political 
Justice, vol. i., p. 279 (Dublin, 1793). 



THE rHILOSOPHY OF JONATHAN EDWARDS. 24:5 

since the creation emanates from himself, and this delight 
may be resolved into a delight in himself. In God, the love 
of himself and the love of the public are not to be distin- 
guished as in man, ^' because God's being, as it were, com- 
prehends all." IN^or is it selfish in him to seek for the holi- 
ness and happiness of the creature, out of supreme regard 
to himseK, or from the esteem which he has for that excel- 
lence, a portion of which he imparts to them, and which he 
reasonably desires to see an object of honor, and the source 
of a joy like his own. " For it is the necessary consequence 
of true esteem and love, that we value others' esteem of the 
same object, and dislike the contrary. For the same reason, 
God approves of others' esteem and love of himself." The 
creature is intended for an eternally increasing nearness and 
union to God. Under this idea, his " interest must be viewed 
as one with God's interest," and is therefore not regarded by 
God as a thing distinct and separate from himself. Thus, 
all the activities of God return to himself as the final goal. 

Edwards was acquainted with Hutcheson. "The calm, 
stable, universal good- will to all, or the most extensive be- 
nevolence," and " the relish and reputation of it," or " the 
esteem and good-will of a higher kind to all in whom it is 
found," are phrases of this writer * which remind us of the 
American philosopher. But the scientific construction of 
the theory of virtue, especially in the place which love to 
God finds in it, is original with Edwards. It is gratifying 
to notice the admiration which the younger Fichte expresses 
for this essay, which is only known to him through the brief 
sketch of Mackintosh. " What he reports of it," says Fichte, 
" appears to me excellent." f He speaks of the bold and 
profound thought that God, as the source of love in all crea- 
tures, on the same ground loves himself infinitely more than 
any finite being ; and therefore in the creation of the world 

* Moral Philosophy, vol. i., p. 69. 

f "Was dieser von ihm bericlitet finden wir votrefflich." System der 
Ethik, i., 544. 



246 THE PHILOSOPHY OF JONATHAN EDWAEDS. 

can have no other end than the revelation of his own perfec- 
tion, which, it is to be observed, consists in love, ^ " So," 
concludes Fichte, " has this solitary thinker of Xorth Amer- 
ica risen to the deepest and loftiest ground which can under- 
lie the principle of morals : universal benevolence which in 
us, as it were, is potentially latent, and in morality is to 
emerge into full consciousness and activity, is only the ef- 
fect of the bond of love, which encloses us all in God." The 
degree or amount of being is a somewhat obscure idea ; 
nevertheless the German critic considers it a true and pro- 
found thought that the degree of the perfection of a being 
is to determine the degree of love to him. Mackintosh, to 
whom Fichte owed his knowledge of Edwards, apparently 
fails, in one passage, to apprehend Edwards's distinction be- 
tween love and esteem, or benevolence and moral compla- 
cency. 

In the interestino; letter which Edwards ^vrote to the 
trustees of Princeton College, he gives reasons for his re- 
luctance to assume the office of president of that institution, 
which he afterward accepted. He explains that he had al- 
ways been accustomed to study with pen in hand, recording 
his best thoughts on innumerable subjects for his own bene- 
fit. Among the results of this practice there had grown up 
in his hands an unfinished work, " a body of di^dnity in an 
entire new method, being thrown into the form of a history." 
This was nothing less than a philosophy of the history of 
mankind, contem]3lated with reference to the redemption of 
the world by Christ, the centre toward which the whole cur- 
rent of anterior events converged, and fi-om which all sub- 
sequent events radiate. There were to be interwoven in the 
work " all parts of divinity," in such a method as to exhibit 
to the best advantage their " admirable contexture and har- 
mony." The conception was a grand one, resembling that 
of Augustine in the De cwitate Dei. The treatise, in its 

* Ibid., pp. 544, 545. 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF JONATHAN EDWARDS. 247 

unfinished state, was published after the author's death, un- 
der the title, A History of the Work of Eede^njption, con- 
taining the Oidlines of a Body of Divinity^ including a 
View of Church History in a Method entirely new. In its 
incomplete form, and notwithstanding the greater disadvan- 
tage of the author's limited leisure and opportunity for the 
prosecution of historical investigation, it remains an impres- 
sive monument of the variety of his powers and of the broad 
range of his studies and reflections. He proposed to unfold 
the course of Divine Providence in all its successive stages,- 
from the decree of creation to the end of the world. The 
preparation of redemption, the accomplishment of it through 
the life and death of Christ, and its effects, are the three 
divisions into w^hich the book is cast. He compares the 
work of redemption, which he undertakes to delineate in its 
orderly progress, to " a temple that is building : first the 
workmen are sent forth, then the materials are gathered, 
the ground is fitted, and the foundation laid ; then the su- 
perstructure is erected, one part after another, till at length 
the top stone is laid and all finished." "^ Of course the acts 
of the drama, which are still in the future, have to be learned 
from prophecy. 

We have seen that Edwards believed in predestination in 
the extreme or supralapsarian form. He encloses in the 
iron network of philosophical necessity all intelligent beings. 
Verbal objections to the term " necessity," and the ascription 
of " a natural ability " to voluntary agents, do not subtract 
an iota from the real significance of the dogma. The sov- 
ereignty of God in the realm of choices, as in the realm of 
matter, and his omnipresent agency, are fundamental in his 
creed. To the charge that their principles are destructive 
of morality, the theological advocates of predestination have 
triumphantly appealed to facts. "Where have the obliga- 
tions of morality been felt more than among the Calvinists 

* Vol. iii., p. 171. 



248 THE PHILOSOPHY OF JONATHAN EDWARDS. 

of Geneva and of Holland, the Hnguenots of France, the 
Scottish Covenanters, and the Puritans of England and of 
New England ? If the doctrine of necessity has borne bad 
fruits in the lives of free-thinkers who have espoused it, 
such is not the case as regards the professors of the Calvin - 
istic creed. It must be observed, however, that it is not 
from their favorite dogma that extreme Calvinists have 
drawn their ethics. Their moral sense has been invigorated 
from other sources. The Stoics believed in fate, but were 
personally upright and conscientious. They borrowed their 
ethics from earlier philosophers, and their morals stood in 
no genetic relation to their metaphysics. With Calvinists, 
predestination stands as the correlate of the sense of absolute 
'dependence, of faith in the control of Divine Providence, 
and of gratitude for grace as the source of all that is good 
within them. Predestination is an inference rather than a 
premise. Macaulay says of William III. : " The tenet of 
predestination was the keystone of his religion. He even 
declared that, if he were to abandon that tenet, he must 
abandon with it all belief in a superintending Providence, 
and must become a mere Epicurean.'- * Calvinists have not 
piled up tome upon tome of theological controversy, they 
have not pined in dungeons and faced death on the battle- 
field, for the sake of a merely speculative notion. It is the 
moral truth for which it stands in their minds as the logical 
equivalent, that has made them so strenuous in the mainte- 
nance of it. 

Julius Muller, one of the ablest of recent theologians, has 
well remarked that, while the supralapsarian conception, 
by which the will is held to be determined to good or to 
evil, in the first man as in all others, by exterior causes, 
might have been held, and was held, at a former day, in 
conjunction with a sincere theism ; such a union of opposites 
at present would not be possible. Pantheism would now be 



* History of England^ vol. ii., p. 149 (New York, 1849). 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF JONATHAN EDWARDS. 249 

connected with such a philosophical tenet. The power of 
God, acting in man through the machinery of motives, 
would be held to be the sole efficient. Nay, all things 
would be traced to impersonal agency. Personality would 
be considered merely phenomenal. The idea of creative 
action would be supplanted by that of emanation. 

The doctrine of Edwards, apart from all theological 
prejudice, fails to satisfy the generality of mankind, when 
it is set up as a complete and exclusive solution of the 
problem of liberty and necessity. He labors hard to prove 
that common sense is with him, but he labors in vain. 
It is one thing, however, to utter a moral protest, and 
another to furnish a logical answer or a valid rectifica- 
tion. 

Certain eminent theologians of New England in later 
times have asserted the power of contrary choice as existing 
ever in connection with a previous certainty of the determi- 
nation of the will being what it actually is. They have 
maintained that motives, the internal antecedents of choice, 
constitute a special order of causes, which are distinguished 
from all others by giving the certainty, but not the neces- 
sity, of the action which follows them. On this theory they 
claim that a foundation is laid for the practical truth rela- 
tive to God's providence and human dependence, at the 
same time that freedom and responsibility are left untouched. 
Dr. Samuel Clarke, in his RemarTcs on Collins's book, pre- 
sents the leading points of this theory. Clarke asserts that 
there exists a principle of self-motion in man, a power of 
initiating motion, or of voluntary self-determination. This 
power is not determined as to the mode of its exertion by 
anything but itself ; that would involve a contradiction. It 
is self -moving. It is absurd to attribute efficiency to the 
mental states which are called motives. If they had effi- 
ciency, man would be like a clock, or a pair of scales, endowed 
with sensation or perception. He would not be an agent. 
What we call motives are bare antecedents, or occasional 
11* 



250 THE PHILOSOPHY OF JONATHAN EDWAEDS. 

causes/^ Clarke shows that the opposite supposition in- 
volves an infinite regress of effects with no cause at all. 
Moreover, uniformity of action does not imply a necessity in 
the connection of the act with its antecedents. " The expe- 
rience of a man's ever doing what he judges reasonable to 
do, is not at all an experience of his being under any neces- 
sity so to do. For concomitancy in this case is no evidence 
at all of physical connection." f The argument for necessity 
from God's prescience, Clarke seeks to confute by maintain- 
ing the previous certainty of acts, even on the supposition 
that they are free, and claiming for God " an infallible judg- 
ment concerning contingent truths," which is only a power 
that we ourselves possess, carried to perfection. This power 
of judging, however, Clarke subjects to no searching analy- 
sis ; and his reasoning is hardly sufficient to meet the objec- 
tions to the possibility of foreknowing contingent actions, 
which are advanced by Edwards.:}: The later J^ew Eng- 
land philosophy postulates, however, a certainty which is 
produced by the antecedent causes, taken in the aggregate. 
Can we conceive of a causal influence which makes an event 
infallibly certain, and yet not necessary ? On this question 
the validity of the later New England theorem seems to 
hinge. 

The Scottish philosophy of Sir William Hamilton solves 
the problem by affirming the inconceivability of both free- 
dom and necessity, on the ground that the first implies a 
beginning of motion, and the other an infinite regress of ef- 
fects ; and it accepts the truth of free-will on the basis of 
our moral feelings, the feelings of self -approbation and re- 
morse, praise and blame, which presuppose moral liberty. 

A middle position is that taken by able philosophers and 
theologians, of whom the late Dr. Mozley is a leading repre- 
sentative. We have an apprehension of two truths which 



* Remarks, etc., p. 9 (London, 1717). 

t Ibid., p. 25. 

X Treatise on the Will, Part II., § 13. 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF JONATHAN EDWARDS. 251 

appear irreconcilable with one another ; but on this ground 
solely, that our idea or apprehension, in either case, is ob- 
scure, imperfect, an incipient and not a completed concep- 
tion. These truths are therefore mysterious. They are 
not a zero in our apprehension, nor are they fully compre- 
hended. Hence our deductions from them are subject to a 
corresponding imperfection. They may serve us, up to a 
certain point, as the groundwork of moral truth ; but neither 
can be used to subvert that moral truth which is related to 
the other. When moral truth is contradicted by logic, there 
is a flaw in the logic ; and this is traceable to the imperfect 
character of the notions which enter into the premises. 
Mozley would probably sanction the dictum of Coleridge 
that, when logic seems to clash with moral intuitions, the 
superior authority belongs to conscience. It need hardly be 
said that the problem belongs not exclusively to theology — 
it belongs to philosophy as well. The perplexities that per- 
tain to it are not escaped by those who renounce the Chris- 
tian faith. 

It is a growing conviction of students of Scripture and of 
philosophy that, on the subject before us, there is more than 
one hemisphere of truth. That which both the Calvinist 
and Arminian chiefly prized was truth, not error. What 
each contended against was the supposed implications of a 
proposition which was^ valued by his opponent from its re- 
lation to a set of implications of a different sort. Each con- 
nected with his antagonist's thesis inferences which that 
antagonist repudiated. One hemisphere of truth Jonathan 
Edwards saw with clearness, and upheld with a strength of 
argument and a subdued but intense fervency which have 
never been surpassed. 

Edwards died at the age of fifty-four, three months after 
he had entered upon the duties of president at Princeton. 
He was an indefatigable student, working often for thirteen 
hours in the day, A biographer says of him that perhaps 



252 THE PHILOSOPHY OF JONATHAN EDWAEDS. 

there never was a man more constantly retired from the 
world. He was never physically strong. ]^ot at all morose, 
bnt courteons and gentle in his ways, he was yet taciturn, 
and he himself refers to what he calls " the disagreeable 
dulness and stiffness of his demeanor, unfitting him for con- 
versation and contact with the world.""^ His countenance 
is not such as we should expect a polemical theologian to 
wear, but is more like that given by the painters to St. John, 
according thus with the deep mystical vein of which we have 
spoken. He is the doctor angelicus among our theologians, 
and, had he lived in the thirteenth century instead of the 
eighteenth, he would have been decorated by admiring pupils 
with such a title. If it be true that, in the last century, 
Berkeley, Hume, and Kant, are the three great names in 
philosophy, there might have been added to the brief cata- 
logue, had he chosen to devote himself exclusively to meta- 
physics, the name of Jonathan Edwards. On the memorial 
window in honor of him, in the chapel of Yale College, of 
which he is the most illustrious graduate, stands the just in- 
scription : " Jonathan Edwards summi in ecclesia ordinis 
vates fuit, rerum sacrarum philosophus qui saeculorum ad- 
mirationem movet, Dei cultor mystice amantissimus : hie 
studebat, docebat." 

* Dwight's Ufe, p. 568. 



CHANNING AS A PHILOSOPHER AND THEOLOGIAN. 253 



CHANNING AS A PHILOSOPHER AND THEO- 
LOGIAN.* 

Channing is regarded by common consent as the most 
eminent representative of the Unitarian movement in this 
country. It is true that others among the gifted men who 
have been conspicuous in that school have equalled or sur- 
passed him in some of the titles to distinction. There have 
been in their number more eloquent preachers. The young- 
er Buckminster was one, of whom Edward Everett declared 
that he had the most melodious voice " that ever passed the 
lips of man ; " f of whom, also, one of the ablest of the early 
Unitarian preachers, who has since rendered most honorable 
service in literature and in public life — Dr. Palfrey — has 
said that his pulpit utterances approached near '' to what 
we imagine of a prophet's or an angel's inspiration.":}: 
In the graces of style and delivery, according to the 
taste of that time, Channing was outdone by the youth- 
ful Everett himself, in the short time in which the latter 
served as the successor of Buckminster in the Brattle Street 
church. No doubt, Channing's manner was marked by a 
glow of chastened earnestness, indicating deep emotions 
held under restraint, and thus had a peculiar fascination of 
its own. Sometimes, though rarely, he broke out in a more 
impassioned strain. Of a sermon preached by him in New 
York, in 1826, an admiring listener wi^ites : " The man was 
full of fire, and his body seemed, under some of his tre- 

* An Article in TJie International Review for July, 1879. 
f Memoirs of the Buckminster s^ p. 396. 
X Ibid., p. 481. 



254: CHAINING AS A PHILOSOPHEE AND THEOLOGIAN. 

mendoiis sentences, to expand into that of a giant ; . . . . 
his face was, if any thing, more meaning than his words." "^ 
If there were others who had more of the qnalifications 
considered to be characteristic of the clerical orator than 
were possessed by Channing, it is also the fact that, as a 
theological scholar, he was much surpassed by Andrews E'or- 
ton; in familiarity with philosophical and general litera- 
tm'e, by George Ripley ; and in a certain cautious accuracy 
and weight of reasoning in moral science, by James Walker. 
ISTor in devoutness of spirit does he excel the younger Henry 
Ware and Ephraim Peabody. Those w^ho knew Channing 
remarked in him something delicate, fastidious, patrician, 
notwithstanding his humane sympathy ; and hence in the 
aptitude to reach directly the common mind he was out- 
stripped by Theodore Parker, whose robust energy and racy 
dialect better fitted him for contact with the multitude. 
But Channing unites in himself various characteristics 
which conspire to give him pre-eminence. A clear mind, 
not wanting in imaginative warmth, a transparent, natural 
style, neither slovenly nor overwi'ought, the sympathies and 
attainments of a man of letters, even though he was not 
widely read — are manifest in his writings. Superadded to 
these qualities, there was a sanctity of spirit which was felt 
by those who heard him in the pulpit, or met him even casual- 
ly in conversation. It was not simply that he was sincere, and 
that he spoke in the accents of conviction. It was not only 
that he was above the influence of personal motives, like 
the love of praise and the dread of censure, and that he had 
a courage corresponding to his conductions — a necessary at- 
tribute in a popular leader — which he exemplified in an in- 
spiriting letter to Henry Ware, Jr., when the latter was de- 
sponding over the poor outlook for their cause in 'New 
York, and in other more serious emergencies.f Channing's 



* Life of Henry Ware, Jr., vol. i., p. 219. 
t Ibid., p. 132. 



CHANNING AS A PIIILOSOPHEE AND THEOLOGIAN. 255 

eminence is chiefly due, first, to the elevated fervor which 
inspired his teaching, and which was of inestimable advan- 
tage in a movement in which the intellectual factor stood in 
so high a ratio to the religious ; and, secondly, to the cir- 
cumstance that he embodied in himself so fully the ethical 
and philanthropic impulse which principally constituted the 
positive living force of the Unitarian cause. Following out 
the humanitarian tendency, he acquired, at home and 
abroad, a high and, in the main, a deserved fame as the 
champion of justice in opposition to slavery and other social 
evils. But I am to speak of him chiefly as a theologian. 

Really to do justice to the subject, it would be requisite 
to review the history of religious thought in 'New England 
from the beginning. But this broad theme can be only 
briefly touched upon. How the Congregationalists, the de- 
scendants of the first settlers and proprietors of the soil, 
forming a united, enlightened body, having in their hands 
the great seats of education. Harvard and Yale, at length 
divided into hostile camps, existing side by side in a state 
of ecclesiastical non-intercourse, is a topic too large to be 
satisfactorily treated here. In England and in New Eng- 
land the eighteenth century was signalized by a reaction 
against the theological tenets of the seventeenth. , In the 
Church of England, Calvinism had given way to the creed 
of Arminius. Among dissenters the Calvinistic doctrines 
were feebly and apologetically defended by men of mod- 
erate theological ability, like Watts and Doddridge. The 
obnoxious points of the Genevan creed were softened down, 
in a deprecatory spirit, to accommodate its adversaries. 
Watts, though inimical to Socinians, himself abandoned the 
orthodox formulas of the Trinity, and broached on that 
subject a peculiar notion of his o^m devising. The chief 
metaphysician of the day, Dr. Samuel Clarke, was an Ar- 
minian and an Arian. Locke's writings acquired more and 
more influence, and these were antagonistic to the main 
points of what had been counted the Evangelical theology. 



256 CHANNINa AS A PHILOSOPHER AND THEOLOGIAN. 

In l^ew England, the closing part of tlie seventeenth, cen- 
tury — the era of the Mathers, who, whatever may have 
been their virtues, were not equal in mental stature to the 
Cottons and Hookers of the earlier age — ^was lamentably 
distmguished by the outbreaking of the witchcraft delusion. 
When we pass into the eighteenth centmy, the atmosphere 
rapidly changes. Old opuiions gradually relax their hold 
upon the faith of many. The English contemporary writ- 
ers are imported and read. The characteristic points of 
Calvinism are less frequently and more vaguely inculcated. 
Whitby, Dr. John Taylor, and radical anti-Trinitarians like 
Emlyn and Priestley, are brought in, and some of them find 
so many readers that they are reprinted. What was called 
Arminianism, which was often more a silent ignoring than 
an explicit rejection of the Calvinistic opinions — which in- 
volved an impatience of creeds, a proclamation of the rights 
of fi-ee thought and of the duty of toleration for wide di- 
versities of religious opinion, and which laid more stress in 
pulpit teaching on moral precepts than on theological doc- 
trines — prevailed widely among the ministers of Xew Eng- 
land, and was the seed-plot out of which Unitarianism was 
developed, in Boston Mayhew and, later in the century, 
Freeman, the minister of King's Chapel, were outspoken 
anti-Trinitarians ; and they did not stand alone. 

Meantime there was a rally of the defenders of the old 
system, under the lead of Jonathan Edwards and his theolo- 
gical disciples, and through the instrumentality of the great 
revival of 1740, when the persuasive eloquence of Wliite- 
field reinforced the teaching of the ]S'ew England ministers 
who were strongly averse to the Arminian way of thinking. 
But the revival was extensively opposed as well as be- 
friended. By emboldening the zeal of the Calvinists, by 
putting new weapons of defence into their hands — especially 
through the writings of Edwards and his followers — and by 
giving them in this way renewed confidence in their cause, 
the Edwardean movement probably accelerated rather than 



CHANNING AS A PHILOSOPHER AND THEOLOGIAN. 267 

hindered the rupture of the Congregational brotherhood of 
ministers and churches. This effect was produced by the 
sharpening of the antagonism which existed between the 
two diverse types of rehgious belief. One of them could 
not crystallize without a like effect on the other. The tra- 
ditional Calvinism roused itself from slumber, buckled on 
its new armor, and took the offensive. It had assumed a 
more clearly defined position, which it felt itself perfectly 
competent to maintain against assailants. Moreover, in the 
practical administration of the gospel, the revival method 
was introduced, so that the more zealous tone of preaching, 
and the more active measures adopted for making converts 
— changes which the Moderates discountenanced as '' enthusi- 
asm " — widened the breach between the two sections of the 
ISTew England Church. 

Another influence that tended to precipitate a conflict was 
the spread in Eastern 'New England of the Hopkinsian 
theology, one of the later fruits of the theological activity 
of Jonathan Edwards. This, in some of its features — as, 
for example, in its doctrine of a general in opposition to a 
limited Atonement — was a mitigated form of Calvinism, 
and was so characterized by Channing himself. But the 
cardinal peculiarity of the Calvinistic system — the idea of 
divine sovereignty — it presented in extreme forms of state- 
ment, with no attempt to qualify it by clothing it in mys- 
tery, by connecting it with any supposed counter truth, or 
by cloaking it under conciliatory phrases. Edwards, in 
maintaining the doctrine of Original Sin, had ventured to 
apply the Berkeleian idea to the mind, which the founder 
of that philosophy never had thought of doing. This exal- 
tation of God's power at the expense of man's agency, if 
consistently carried out, would issue in a form of Pantheism 
— that form which merges human personality in the divine. 
It is the opinion of most philosophical critics of Edwards, 
that the real drift of his treatise on the Will is in the same 
direction. It is doubtful whether any of the Hopkinsian 



258 CHAINING AS A PHILOSOPHER AND THEOLOGIAN. 

leaders were actual adherents of tlie Berkeleian tlieorj ; still 
less probable that they consciously carried it so far beyond the 
intention of its author — although Berkeley's theory of per- 
ception had a decided influence on some of the l^ew England 
divines. But the ideas of Edwards — even his scattered 
hints — were subsequently very fruitful in the minds of his 
disciples. The Hopkinsians attributed the moral choices of 
men — evil choices as well as good — to " divine efiiciency." 
President Dwight wrote against Emmons a sermon to show 
that the mind is not " a chain of exercises," and significantly 
spoke of theology in certain quarters as verging towards 
Pantheism. Whatever was the real intent of the Hopkin- 
sian writers, however much we are to set down to the credit 
(or discredit) of ill-chosen phraseology, they made on the 
public, notwithstanding their verbal assertions of human 
power or " natural ability," the impression of teaching that 
moral choices, bad and good, are literally produced by a cre- 
ative act of God. Coupled with these extravagant views 
was naturally connected the idea of " submission to God " 
as the first and supreme act of human duty, preceding faith 
in the Pedeemer ; and this submission, it was held, must 
take the form of a willingness to be cast off for ever, if the 
glory of God should require it. Man is condemned by the 
divine law, they said : he must condemn himself, therefore ; 
and since he deserves the full penalty, he must be willing to 
endure it : otherwise, he is not in full sympathy with the 
divine justice and government. But the moment that he 
reaches this acme of submission he becomes a fit subject of 
mercy. Perhaps for the first time in the history of the 
church, it was made by Christian pastors a necessary condi- 
tion of being saved that one should be "willing to be 
damned." There can be no doubt that the exaggeration of 
Calvinism in the direction of divine power and sovereignty, 
the sharp, relentless formulating of these obnoxious dogmas, 
and the obtrusion of them in season and out of season, had 
something to do in provoking the doctrinal reaction and re- 



CHANNING AS A PHILOSOrHER AND THEOLOGIAN. 259 

volt, although the main cause was deeper and of a more 
general nature. 

It is remarkable that the Unitarian movement was con- 
fined chiefly to Eastern ISTew England, and did not extend 
into "Western Massachusetts and Connecticut. In Connecti- 
cut there were never more than two or three Unitarian 
churches, and these in obscure towns. One ground of this 
fact is, that in that State the Episcopal Church struck a 
deeper root than in Massachusetts. For all who might dis- 
like the style of preaching and the peculiar measures which 
characterize what is called " revivalism," with its exciting 
appeals and its prying interrogation of individuals as to their 
religious experience, and for all who recoiled from rigorous 
metaphysical definitions of religious truth, the door of the 
Episcopal Church in Connecticut stood open. Here was a 
church with an evangelical creed and evangelical worship, 
where those who were disaffected with Puritan ways, old or 
new, could find a quiet harbor. Another reason for the dif- 
ference of which I speak lay in the circumstances which 
gave to the Edwardeans a complete ascendancy in Connecti- 
cut. The old Arminianism was not so strong or so strongly 
intrenched there as in Eastern Massachusetts. The Calvin- 
ists of the older school, from their greater fear of Arminian 
doctrine, were inclined to coalesce with the followers of 
Edwards, as is seen in the case of President Clap, of Yale 
College (1739-1766). President Stiles, of the same college 
(1777-1795), was more of a latitudinarian in his opinions 
and afiiliations ; he looked back on the Revival " as the late 
period of enthusiasm." But he was succeeded by Dwight, 
whose accession to the presidency secured the complete as- 
cendancy of the school of Edwards. The moderation of 
Dwight in his theological statements, his strenuous opposi- 
tion to Hopkinsian extravagances, and, more than all, his 
commanding influence as a preacher and an instructor of 
theological students, contributed much towards keeping the 
Congregational churches and ministers in the old path. This 



260 CHANGING AS A PHILOSOPHER AND THEOLOGIAN. 

result, however, might not have occurred had there been 
that deep and varied preparation for a doctrinal revolution 
which had been going forward in Boston and its neighbor- 
hood through the greater part of the eighteenth century. 

If we would understand the Unitarian schism, we must 
take into account the fact that there were not only two in- 
terpretations of the Bible which came into collision, but that 
there were, at the same time, two types of culture. Unita- 
rianism, as it has appeared in history, has been conjoined 
with no single form of church polity. It has sprung up in 
the midst of Anglican Episcopacy. It has sprung up at 
Geneva, in connection with Presbyterianism, and close by 
Calvin's grave. But it has frequently gone hand in hand 
with literary criticism and belles-lettres cultivation. This was 
the case in the Italian Unitarianism of the sixteenth century, 
which arose out of the Renaissance culture, and in the Uni- 
tarianism that spread so widely among the gentry of Poland. 
The same was conspicuously true of the Unitarian party in 
'New England. There grew up about Boston and Cambridge 
a method of biblical criticism which was nourished by the 
study of Griesbach, and of the Arminian scholars of an ear- 
lier date. In connection with these studies there was a new 
and wider range of literary activity, and an altered style and 
standard of literary and aesthetic training. Dwight and the 
elder Buckminster had been fellow-students and tutors to- 
gether at Yale College, in the latter part of the last century. 
They broke loose fi'om the metaphysical style of discussion 
which had been in vogue before in the pulpit, and fos- 
tered the reading of the contemporary English classics. But 
they still exhibit a stiff and somewhat tumid quality of style. 
In the sermons of the younger Buckminster we find that 
these faults have been outgrown ; although even he expresses 
himself with a certain formality, and with an avoidance of 
the vocabulary of common life. From these remaining fet- 
ters Channing escaped, thereby evincing the continued ad- 
vance of literary taste. He speaks somewhere of the habit 



CHANNING AS A PHILOSOPHER AND THEOLOGIAN. 261 

that had prevailed of shunning familiar words as if they had 
been soiled by common use. In his own style there is noth- 
ing artificial and nothing slovenly. As the Unitarian move- 
ment went forward to later stages, the changes in the type 
of literary culture became very decided and very infiuential. 
But at the outset, at the epoch when Channing began his 
career, one feels, in looking at the writers on the Unitarian 
side, that they have passed beyond the point of bending en- 
tranced over the pages of Sir Charles Grandison, and are 
likely soon to become quite insensible to the attractions of 
Miss Hannah More. Theodore Parker says of Unitarian- 
ism : " The protest began among a class of cultivated men 
in the most cultivated part of America ; with men who had 
not the religious element developed in proportion to the in- 
tellectual or the aesthetic element." * Of this there can be 
no doubt — that, along with a real interest in theology and 
religion, there was a very decided taste and aptitude for lit- 
erary pursuits. Among those who have left the Unitarian 
pulpit to devote themselves to literature or politics are Mr. 
Sparks, Mr. Everett, Mr. Bancroft, Mr. Emerson, Mr. Kip- 
ley, Dr. Palfi'ey, Mr. Upham. If an equal number of lead- 
ing minds had withdrawn themselves from the pulpit in the 
Methodist denomination — supposing that, in its early days, 
it had possessed so many able and learned men — or from 
any other religious body not more numerous than the Uni- 
tarians were, the fact would be considered very remarkable. 
I refer to this matter merely as an indication of the general 
change of atmosphere, so to speak, in the places where Uni- 
tarianism appeared. The old Puritan, training with its alto- 
gether predominant devotion to religious and theological 
writers, its austere jealousy of imaginative literature, and 
its rigid metaphysical habit, was fast giving way to a 
different and more diversified type of culture. In the 
circle of students to which Channing belonged at Cam- 

* Weiss's Life of Parker^ vol. i. p. 270. 



262 CHAXNEsG AS A PHILOSOPHEE AND THEOLOGIAN. 

bridge, there was a newlj-awakened zeal in the study of 
Shakespeare. 

Another powerful agency, after the middle of the eigh- 
teenth century, had operated to turn the thoughts of men in 
that region awav from metaphysics and abstract inquiries 
in theology into another channel. This was the discussion 
of political questions, which formed the prelude to the 
American Eevolution, and called off many vigorous minds 
from theological conti'oversy to another ai'ena. These dis- 
cussions were afterwards carried forward with absorbing in- 
terest dming the administration of om- iii'st presidents, when 
the French Eevolution and the stirring events on the conti- 
nent of Europe to which it gave rise brought forward ques- 
tions of the highest moment relating to government and 
society. Human rights and the well-being of mankind 
were topics of which Channing had heard from his child- 
hood. 

Channing was in contact from early life on the one hand 
with the strong religious influence which was still felt in 
Pmitan Xew England, and, on the other, with laudations 
of mental fi^eedom and with the growing tendencies to lib- 
eral or latitudinarian thought in matters of belief. TTith 
his sensitive, conscientious spirit, and his passion for libei-ty, 
he responded to both these influences. There were several 
critical epochs in his mental history. At Xew Eondon, 
where he was at school in his boyhood before entering college, 
he received during a revival deep and lasting impressions, 
and, as his biographer tells us, dated his religious life from 
that time." Ei colleo*e, he read with delio:ht Ferguson's 
work on Civil Society. The capacities and the destiny of 
mankind, himian nature and human progress, warmly in- 
terested his attention. Hutcheson, especially, the Scottish 
wiiter on Morals, whose glowing pictm^es of the beauty of 
universal benevolence produced a strong effect on many 

* Memoir of Channing, yoI. i. , p. 43. 



CHANNING AS A PHILOSOPHER AND THEOLOGIAN. 263 

other T^ew Englanders, kindled Channing's enthusiasm to a 
flame. On one occasion, when only fifteen, walking under 
the trees with his book in hand, these ideas of his favorite 
author, which suggested to him the possibility of an end- 
less progress and the glory of disinterested virtue, awakened 
a rapture that stamped the place and the hour indelibly 
upon his memory. But he passed through a sentimental 
period of considerable duration. He gave himself up to 
idle musings, to delicious or gloomy reveries. He would 
stand upon the beefch at ^Newport, and, in a high Byronic 
mood, long to rush to the embrace of the waters, whose 
tumultuous heavings harmonized with the mood of his own 
spirit. He had read the Stoics, and fancied himself akin to 
them. He wept over Goldsmith and over a sonnet of 
Southey, and even over the poems of Kogers. It is hard to 
believe that these maudlin tempers could ever have belonged 
to a man of Channing's sterling sincerity. He afterwards 
deplored them, and was ashamed of them. After graduat- 
ing, while he was teaching at Richmond, Virginia, his more 
sensible brother writes to him : " You know nothing of 
yourself. You talk of your apathy and stoicism, when you 
are the baby of your emotions, and dandled by them without 
any chance of being weaned." '^ He was weaned, however. 
At Bichmond a revolution took place in his inward life. 
" I was blind," he says, " to the goodness of God, and blind 
to the love of my Bedeemer. Now I behold w^ith shame and 

confusion the depravity and rottenness of my heart 

I have now solemnly given myself up to God I love 

mankind because they are the children of God." This 
act of self -consecration put an end to aimless sentiment, and 
morbid revery, and self -brooding. Thenceforward it should 
be his undivided purpose to serve God and mankind, oblivious 
of self. Of this moral crisis in Channing's course we might 
be glad to have more definite knowledge. It does not ap- 

* Memoir^ vol. i., p. 108. 



264 CHAINING AS A PHILOSOPHER AND THEOLOGIAN. 

pear tliat perplexities of doctrine or metaplijsical problems, 
such as we might look for in a ^N'ew Englander sprung from 
the Puritan stock, disturbed his thoughts in the least at 
that critical time. In truth, at all times moral and spiritual 
relations were uppermost in his mind. He is spoken of in 
the title of this article as a '' philosopher ; " but if philoso- 
phy is used in its limited sense, to denote metaphysics, or the 
metaphysics of theology, there is little more to be said 
under this rubric than is contained in the noted chapter on 
Snakes, in the Natural History of Ireland : " There are 
no snakes in Ireland." His strongest objection to the doc- 
trine of the Trinity is the practical perplexities which he 
supposed it to occasion in worship ; his objections to Calvin- 
ism are not so much logical, but lie principally in what he 
terms the moral argument against it. He was never fond 
of Priestley. In this case, to be sure, the materialistic and 
necessarian theories of this author were repugnant to his 
convictions. Much as he honored Locke as a man, and fi-e- 
quently as he refers to him as an example of anti-Trinitarian 
belief in conjunction with high intellectual endowments, 
Locke's philosophical tenets were not congenial to him. He 
was delivered from them by his favorite writer, Price, whose 
dissertations won him over to the intuitive school, and who 
contributed essentially to the formation of his philosophical 
and theological opinions. This author is really a lucid as 
well as an animated expositor of the spiritual, in opposition 
to the empirical, philosophy. He vindicates the reality of 
a priori truth in the spirit of Cudworth. The genial tone 
of Price and his anti-Trinitarian opinions, also recommended 
him to Channing's favor. 

There is one link of connection between Channing and 
the earlier New England theologians. This is through 
Hopkins, who was a minister at Newport in the youth of 
Channing, and had not a little personal intercourse with 
him. A notice of his relation with Hopkins brings us 
naturally to one of the cardinal features of Channing's re- 



CHANNING AS A PHILOSOPHER AND THEOLOGIAN. 265 

ligious system. He says : " I was attached to Dr. Hopkins 
chiefly by his theory of disinterestedness. I had studied 
with great delight during my college life the philosophy 
of Hntcheson and the stoical morality, and these had pre- 
pared me for the noble, self-sacrificing doctrines of Dr. Hop- 
kins." ^ The theory of virtue to which Channing alludes was 
■unfolded in its essential points by Jonathan Edwards. Holi- 
ness, goodness, virtue — moral excellence, by whatever name 
it may be called — consists in Love. It is love towards the 
universal society of intelligent beings, of which God is the 
head. This love is impartial ; it goes out to every being, 
and gives to each his due portion. God, the infinite One, is 
entitled to love without limit. Every one who is of the 
same order of being as myself I am to love equally with 
myself. Love is disinterested. I am to love myself not as 
my self, but only as one member of this universal society — 
a member whose welfare is a proper object of pursuit, not 
less and not more than is the welfare of any other human 
being, every other one being of equal worth or value. Self 
is merged in the sum total of being, as a drop in the ocean. 
It is obvious that Love, as thus defined, has two directions : 
one upward to God, and the other outward towards our fel- 
low-men. 'Not that piety and philanthropy, in their true 
and perfect form, are really separable from one another ; 
yet it is quite possible for the feelings of adoration, devotion, 
submission, and the whole religious side of love to engross 
as it were the mind, so that the interests of man and of 
human life in this mundane sphere, except so far as man is 
to be prevented from inflicting dishonor on God and ruin 
upon himself by that means, should be left in the back- 
ground. God is to be exalted and glorified — this is the 
main thought. Such was the tendency of Calvinism ; of 
Calvinism in New England as elsewhere. All such state- 
ments are, indeed, subject to much qualification. Calvinists 

* Memoir, vol. i., p. 137. 
12 



266 CHANNING AS A PHILOSOPHEE AND THEOLOGIAN. 

demanded rigliteousness of conduct. Channing was taught 
by Hopkins to hate slavery. This intrepid old man lifted 
his voice against slavery and the slave-trade in Newport, 
when that town was a principal mart of this iniquitous 
traffic. But, speaking generally, it was the first and great 
commandment, and the feelings directly involved in it, that 
mainly absorbed the attention. It was not absolutely for- 
gotten that the second commandment is "like unto it." 
The duties of man to his neighbor were placed on the 
ground of religious obligation. But an active, warm-hearted, 
many-sided philanthropy, which looks after the temporal as 
well as the eternal interests of mankind, and goes out with 
tender sympathy to minister to suffering of every kind ; 
which raises hospitals, builds comfortable habitations for 
the honest poor, visits those who are sick and in prison, 
cherishes a conception of education as comprehensive as the 
faculties of the mind — such a spirit of philanthropy was 
not characteristic of the religion of i^ew England, and 
Channing and Unitarianism have done much to promote it. 
The disinterested benevolence of Edwards and Hopkins now 
turned from lofty and sometimes almost ecstatic meditations 
upon the sovereignty and perfection of God, and the itera- 
tion of the solemn demand to submit to his authority and 
to live to His glory, to the man- ward side of this principle. 
Edwards was transported by visions of the sweetness of 
Christ and of the sublime attributes of God ; Channing, by 
the exalted nature and infinite possibilities of man. 

The dignity of human nature^ then, was a fundamental 
article in Channing's creed. In every human being there is 
the germ of an unbounded progress. An unspeakable value 
belongs to him. His nature is not to be vilified. A wrong 
done to him is like violence offered to an angel. 

This idea of the dignity of man is a great Christian truth. 
Ko one can doubt that it was a living conviction in Chan- 
ning's mind. It imparted to him that " enthusiasm of hu- 
manity" which became the passion of his soul. But there is 



CHANNING AS A PHILOSOPHEK AND THEOLOGIAN. 267 

another side to the picture. " It is dangerous," says Pascal, 
" to make man see how he is on a level with the brutes, 
without showing him his greatness. It is dangerous, again, 
to make him see his greatness without seeing his baseness. 
.... Let man estimate himself at his real value. Let him 
love himself, if he has in him a nature capable of good ; but 
let him not love on this account the vilenesses that belong to 
it. Let him despise himself, because this capacity is waste ; 
but let him not on this account despise this natural capacity. 
Let him hate himself ; let him love himself." Channing 
avowed himself an opponent of what may properly enough 
be termed the Catholic theology. He considered the church 
in all past ages to have been immersed in error on religious 
themes of capital importance. This was his judgment re- 
specting the churches of the Reformation, as well as the 
church of the middle ages. On these topics, which stand 
in the forefront of Christian theology, he frankly and boldly, 
but always without bitterness or malignity, declared that the 
leading Reformers were the victims of superstition. The 
movement of which he was an advocate was represented as 
a new instauration of Christianity. The light which had 
been obscured by dismal clouds had at last broken forth in 
its full illuminating power. He openly, though without the 
least arrogance, claims the character of an innovator and a 
dissentient. It is not amiss, therefore, to attempt to account 
for his rejection of the general creed. What has the Cath- 
olic theology to say in justification of itself ? It has to say 
simply that Channing had a view — that is, an adequate, pen- 
etrating view — of only one side of the truth. Not but that 
he had a mournful perception of the evils wrought by sin in 
defacing God's image in man, and in inflicting misery upon 
individuals and communities. ]^ot that he was incapable of 
moral indignation in view of atrocities done by man against 
his neighbor. But the Catholic theology, if I may venture 
to interpret its verdict, does not find in him and in his teach- 
ing, as a whole, that discernment of the guilt of sin, of that 



268 CHANNING AS A PHILOSOPHEK AND THEOLOGIAN. 

particular quality of evil-doing, wliich. may blanch the cheek 
and strike terror to the hearj: of even the prosperous crim- 
inal ; which moved the publican to beat upon his breast, 
which makes the strong man bow his head in shame and 
trembling, and which pierced as a sharp arrow the souls of 
Augustine, Luther, Edwards, and the Apostle Paul. I have 
no wish to bring an accusation against Channing, or to mag- 
nify a defect. I simply seek to account for an antagonism 
which he himself, and everybody else, admits to exist. The 
Catholic theology, once more, fails to discover in Channing 
a sufficiently strong grasp of sin as a principle, revealing it- 
self in multiform expressions or phenomena, entering into 
numberless phases of manifestation, exercising sway in man- 
kind, and holding fast the will in a kind of bondage. The 
diversified forms of selfish and unrighteous action are not 
habitually traced back by him to the/ons et origo malorwm 
—the mysterious alienation of men from the fellowship of 
God. The moral malady is not explored to its sources ; and 
hence the tendency is to treat it with palliatives. He is too 
much inclined to rely on education to do the work of regen- 
eration. The forces requisite for the redemption of the cap- 
tive from servitude are underrated : as John Randolph said 
of Watts and Beattie, given him as an antidote to Hume, 
" Milk-and-water for the bite of a rattlesnake ! " This ten- 
dency was not fully carried out by Channing. He belongs 
to a transition. But he shows plainly the drift of the 
stream ; and he speaks of customary accusations of sin 
brought against mankind as exaggerated. If this is not the 
right clew to the explanation of Channing's dissent, we 
know not where to look for it. 

It may be deemed a palliation of what the Catholic theol- 
ogy must consider a grave error in Channing, that current 
expositions of the mystery of sin were so justly open to 
criticism. The Hopkinsians, to be sure, made the will the 
seat of moral evil, but they did not distinguish with any 
steadiness between voluntary and involuntary inclinations, 



CHANNINa AS A PHILOSOPHEK AND THEOLOGIAN. 269 

between clioice and constitutional sensibility ; and, worse still, 
they referred the beginning of sin in each individual of the 
race to a sovereign decree, and did not scruple to ascribe it 
to a creative act, or, as they termed it, to divine efficiency. 
Such was their usual phraseology, that it was hard for those 
w^io heard it to find any firm ground of human responsi- 
bility for character thus originated. The rest of the New 
England Calvinists, on the other hand, made sin a physical 
inheritance, a taint or contamination, which is entailed like 
the color of the eyes, or, rather, like a disease of the lungs. 
In this abject condition was orthodox theology, in this 
branch of it, when the Unitarian polemics- opened their 
guns upon it. And here is the place to say, that the real 
point of controversy between the two parties was the doc- 
trine of Sin and the correlated doctrine of Conversion. 
The field of debate w^as Anthropology. The New England 
mind was not speculative ; and Jonathan Edwards was al- 
most the only one of our divines who showed an extraordi- 
nary talent or relish for speculative divinity. It was the 
practical side of theology, sin and regeneration in their re- 
lation to the conditions of human responsibility, that inter- 
ested his successors. They wanted to make Calvinism self- 
consistent, and to parry objections that arose in the minds 
of their own hearei's, or were disseminated by the English 
Arminian writers. It is remarkable, although the Trinity 
and the person of Christ were nominally the subject of con- 
tention in the Unitarian controversy, how little of impor- 
tance was contributed on either side to the elucidation of 
these topics. Even Norton and Stuart, the best-equipped 
disputants, say little that had not been said before. 

On the doctrine of Man, then, as I humbly conceive, the 
defect of Channing was that he was captivated by an ideal. 
He saw w^hat man might be, what man ought to be ; but he 
did not thoroughly see what man really is. The obstacle to 
be overcome in the redemption of man he imperfectly ap- 
prehended. In other words — not applying the term in any 



270 CHANNmG AS A PHILOSOPHER AND THEOLOGIAN. 

offensive meaning — he was a sentimentalist. He had never 
experienced in himself any flagrant outbreaking of sin ; he 
had never wrestled in mortal agony with any sensual pro- 
pensity. In these particulars he resembled Pelagius rather 
than Augustine. I^or did his associations in life bring him 
very much in contact with gross manifestations of wickedness. 

It may be added to these remarks that the Catholic theol- 
ogy does not degrade human nature, but exalts it, by the 
emphasis which it lays on guilt. It is only an exalted being 
that can make himseK an object of moral indignation to 
the infinite Creator. The consciousness of guilt forbids 
man to think lightly of himself, to conceive of himself as 
beneath the notice of God, or to count upon the indulgence 
to which feeble and imperfect orders of being may reason- 
ably lay claim. Sin, when we seek to comprehend its in- 
ception and spread through mankind, is enveloped in mys- 
tery ; but, as Coleridge has said, it is the one mystery which 
makes aU things else clear. 

The next of the leading ideas of Channing was that of 
the Fatherhood of God. Against the Calvinistic assertion 
of the sovereignty of God, he was never tired of proclaiming 
God's paternal character. In the Scriptures, God is spoken 
of as a King, and He is denominated a Father. That 
there is an administration of the world by moral laws, and 
that these laws are enforced by penal sanctions, is a matter 
of experience as well as of revelation. In other words, 
there is a moral government over mankind. How are we 
to conceive the deepest, the essential, relation of God to 
human beings whom he has created in his image ? Is it 
best typified by the relation of a parent to his children ? It 
must not be overlooked that almost uniformly in the I^ew 
Testament it is believers in Christ, his disciples, and they 
exclusively, who are designated the children of God. " As 
many as received him, to them gave he power to become the 
sons of God, even to them that believe on his name " (John 
1 : 12). This is the point of view of aU the 'New Testament 



CHANNING AS A PHILOSOPHER AND THEOLOGIAN. 271 

writers. Sonsliip is a privilege of ti'ue followers of Christ, 
and is referred to as an exalted and a new relation. The 
Lord's prayer was given to the disciples. They constitute a 
family ; a line of demarcation is drawn about them. A 
sound exegesis cannot fail to recognize this. At the same 
time, it is not to be supposed that the constitution of man 
is altered, or that new faculties are imparted to men, or that 
a relation totally new and foreign to the nature of things is 
introduced by their recovery to God. Kather does man find 
himself ; he comes back to his true nature, and is reinstated 
in his normal relation to his Creator. This is implied in 
the parable of the prodigal son, and in the quotation which 
Paul made at Athens from a heathen poet, who said that 
we are the offspring of God. He is the Father of our 
spirits. Channing meant and professed to follow the Scrip- 
tures ; but he would have followed them more strictly if he 
had dwelt less on the paternal relation of God to mankind 
in their present state, and had insisted more on the fact that 
a relation which is practically subverted by their disloyalty 
can be restored only by their return to filial allegiance. We 
are commanded in the New Testament to behold the good- 
ness and the severity of God. The severe side, the side of 
judgment and penalty, which is adapted to produce fear, 
had been held up to view, sometimes disproportionately. 
Both Edwards and Hopkins had stated in the boldest lan- 
guage that the righteous in heaven would derive satisfaction 
from contemplating the torments of the lost. This conclu- 
sion they supposed to follow by an irresistible logic from the 
justice of the appointed penalty — as if a due sympathy with 
the righteous administration of law required that we shall 
attend and enjoy public executions. In the powerful reac- 
tion against representations of this character, against the 
corresponding portraiture of God, against sensuous pictures 
of retributive torment, and the predominant appeals to fear, 
the Unitarians tended towards the other extreme of emas- 
culating religion by divesting it of those elements which 



awaken dread in the guiltv — elements wliich are jnst a? 
prominently set forth in the Bible as are the paternal feel- 
ings of God, and can never safely be left out of the teach- 
ing of Christianity. Channing, when he was a boy, not 
only never killed a bu'd, and avoided crushing an insect, 
but he let rats ont of a trap to save them fi'om being 
drowned."^ 

To bring men back to God as penitent children is recog- 
nized also by the Catholic theology as the end of the Gospel. 
Ent how ? Ttirough the Son. The sonship of Christ is the 
power and the pattern of sonship in those who have fallen 
away fi*om God. In the chm-ch docti'ine, fatherhood is an 
eternal characteristic of God. It does not begin to be with 
the human race, or with redemption. The Son is sent to 
bring back in himself the fallen race. His sonship is eter- 
nal ; the mode of his derivation and dependence elevates him 
above the rank of a creatm-e. But he is sent ; and his com- 
ing is thus the highest conceivable evidence of the love of 
God to mankind, and of his pity towards them, and of self- 
sacrrfice on the part of hun who voluntarily becomes a par- 
taker of human natm-e with ah its bm-dens and exj^osm-es. 
It is in the fellowship of the Son — according to St. John 
and St. Paul — that we attain to the realization of the filial 
relation to God. But what was Channing's conception of 
Christ ? According to Channing, Christ was a pre-existent 
rational creatm^e, an angel or sphit of some sort, who had 
entered into a human body. He was not even a man except 
so far as his coi-poreal part is concerned, but was a creatm-e 
fi^om some upper s]3here. Xow we can see some plausibility 
in the theory that Christ was merely a man ; was hmnan 
just as ]\Ioses and Paul were hmnan ; and that this is a com- 
plete accoimt of his person — although we believe this theory 
to be unscriptural and untrue. But one must be excused 
for saying — and this is said without the least polemical acri- 

* Memoir^ vol. i. , p. 40. 



CHANNINQ- AS A PHILOSOPHER AND THEOLOGIAN. 273 

mony — that the particular conception which Channing set 
up in the room of the church doctrine of the Incarnation is 
one of the crudest notions which the history of speculation 
on this subject has ever presented. The transitional charac- 
ter of Channing's type of theology is strikingly indicated in 
this indefinite, unphilosophical sort of Arianism, to which it 
would seem that he adhered to the end. 

Here, again, we are obliged to trace error in part to the 
particular conception of the Trinity which had come to pre- 
vail in New England. Hopkins was the last to hold to the 
Nicene doctrine of the primacy of the Father and the eter- 
nal sonship of Christ. The whole philosophy of the Trinity, 
as that doctrine was conceived by its great defenders in the 
age of Athanasius, when the doctrine was formulated, had 
been set aside. It was even derided ; and this chiefly for 
the reason that it was not studied. Professor Stuart had no 
sympathy with, or just appreciation of, the Nicene doctrine 
of the generation of the Son. His conscious need of a phi- 
losophy on the subject was shown in the warm, though 
cautious and qualified, welcome which he gave to the Sabel- 
lianism of Schleiermacher. What he defended against Chan- 
ning, though with vigor and learning, was the notion of 
three distinctions to which personal pronouns can be ap- 
plied — a mode of defining the Trinity which the Nicene 
Fathers who framed the orthodox creed would have re- 
garded with some astonishment. The eternal fatherhood of 
God, the precedence of the Father, is as much a part of the 
orthodox doctrine of the Trinity as is the divinity of the 
Son. 

What, according to Channing, is the purpose of the mis- 
sion of Christ ? What work does he perform ? Here he 
agrees with the church in the general proposition that he 
came to deliver men from sin and its consequences.^" The 
accepted doctrine, and what has always been considered the 

* Sermon at Mr. Sparks's Ordination: Wo7'ks, vol. iii., p. 88. 
12* 



274 CHAINING AS A PHILOSOPHER AISTD THEOLOGIAN. 

doctrine of the Scriptures, is that an expiatory effect is ac- 
complished by Christ ; that although he reveals the Father's 
love, and is sent by the Father ont of compassio'n to the sin- 
ful race, there is yet in the conscience of God a demand to 
which the consciences of men respond, for something of the 
nature of compensation in the moral order violated by sin ; 
that this compensation being made, the foundation is laid 
for a forgiveness which brings honor to the divine character 
on all sides, and is consistent with a righteous moral admin- 
istration. Thus a new relation is established between God 
and men — a reconciliation. This doctrine of the mediation 
of Christ is pm-posely stated here in the most general terms, 
in order that none of the special theories in which it has 
been embodied may be confounded with the essential idea. 
[N'ow Channing did not absolutely renounce the orthodox 
opinion. Having referred to the opposite view, he says : 
" Many of us are dissatisfied with this explanation, and think 
that the Scriptures ascribe the remission of sins to Christ's 
death, with an emphasis so peculiar that we ought to con- 
sider this event as having a special influence in removing 
punishment, though the Scriptm-es may not reveal the way 
in which it contributes to this end." But, in keepmg with 
his transitional position, he lays no stress on this truth. On 
the contrary, he is unsparing, though never intentionally un- 
fau- or extravagant, in his denunciation of the cm-rent ex- 
pressions in which it is set forth. Either from a want of 
familiarity with the history of doctrine, or from not being 
addicted to patient intellectual analysis, he is content with 
giving expression to his revolted feeling. He does not stop 
to inquire whether a profound truth may not be contained in 
a statement which, if literally taken, is obnoxious. He 
sticks in the phraseology. Xor does he attempt to separate 
a particular representation of some school in theology from 
the deep, imderlying truth which theology, with varying de- 
grees of success, has been endeavoring to formulate. There 
is a contrast between the clearness, and evident honesty of 



CHANNING AS A PHILOSOPHER AND THEOLOGIAN. 275 

purpose, with which he describes the position of his adver- 
saries, and the inability profoundly to appreciate that posi- 
tion. Propositions, the terms of which are capable of more 
than one interpretation (as that 'the atonement appeases 
God ' ), are taken in one sense — an admissible sense, indeed, 
if the words only are considered, but yet not the sense which 
these words suggest to the minds of those who utter them 
— and then a variety of inferences are deduced, repugnant 
to sound Christian feeling and to a portion of the teaching 
of Scripture. 

Apart from his criticism of adverse views, Channing's 
positive idea is that Christ does his work of reclaiming men 
from shi by teaching truth, which is recommended by his 
spotless character and by his death, and confirmed as having 
authority by his miracles, especially his resurrection from 
the dead. Of the teaching of Christ, especially of his ethi- 
cal teaching, and of the unapproachable beauty and perfec- 
tion of his character, it is well known that Channing has 
written much that is admirable. When we inquire specifi- 
cally what the capital points of that doctrine are which Christ 
was sent into the world to announce, we find them to be the 
doctrine of God the Father, and of the immortality of the 
soul. This last truth is brought home to men's belief by the 
resurrection of Jesus. These two truths are singled out by 
Channing, in writing on Christian Evidences, as most im- 
portant points of the Saviour's teaching. The paternal char- 
acter of God is declared and evinced, and thereby supersti- 
tions and gloomy fears growing out of them are dispelled ; 
and the soul's destiny to survive death is vividly exhibited, 
and is also proved, by the raising of Jesus from the dead. 
The Christian revelation is reduced in its contents substan- 
tially to these two articles of faith. 

It might have been predicted, from the analogies of expe- 
rience, that the Liberal movement would not stop with the 
abandonment of the doctrines of the Incarnation and Atone- 
ment, and with the resolution of Christianity into the inciil- 



276 CHANNING AS A PHILOBOPHEE AND THEOLOGIAN. 

cation of an elevated monotheism, coupled with the truth of 
immortality, and verified by miracles.^ A ferment like that 
which Channing and his associates excited could not stop 
where it began. In such an atmosphere changes occur fast. 
The revolution of thought, like political revolutions, could 
not halt where its authors might wish it to stop, but must 
move on to more advanced stages. The first remarkable 
phenomenon was the development of the Intuitional Theory, 
if so it may be styled. Schleiermacher, and the French and 
German philosophers, were read by some. The thoughts of 
these writers feU into a genial soil. Religious truth, which 
the older Unitarians, after the manner of Locke and Paley, 
received on the ground of miraculous proof, was now af- 
firmed to be evident to the soul independently of that spe- 
cies of evidence, which was pronounced to be of secondary 
value. This view of things involved a carrying of mental 
freedom further than had been anticipated. It was sup- 
posed to threaten the basis of supernaturalism. It awakened 
alarm. Professor [N^orton, learned in 'New Testament criti- 
cism and in the early patristic literatm^e, in an address to the 
Cambridge Divmity School, uttered a warning against the 
new doctrine of a light within the soul as the latest form of 
infidelity. Spinoza, Schleiermacher, De Wette, and kindred 
spirits, were put under the ban, and their followers excom- 
municated with bell and candle. His position was that " no 
proof of the divine commission of Christ could be afforded 
save through miraculous displays of God's power.'^ "]^o 
rational man," he said, " can suppose that God has miracu- 
lously revealed facts which the very constitution of our na- 
ture enables us to perceive." To this address, Mr. George 
Ripley responded in a scholarly and trenchant pamphlet, in 

* Among the works which throw light on the history of Unitarianism in 
New England, in its successive phases, are the Memoirs of Dr. Buckmin- 
ster and of J. 8. Buckminster ., Channing' 8 Memoirs (by W. H. Channing), 
the Life of Br. Gannett (by his son), the hiograpMes of Parker (by Weiss 
and by Frothingham), Frothingham's Transcendentalism., and \hQ Memoir 
of Margaret Fuller. 



CHANNING AS A PHILOSOPHER AND THEOLOGIAN. 277 

wliicli he earnestly vindicated Sclileierniaclier and others 
from the charge of infidelity, and proved by citations from 
eminent theologians that the internal proof of the Gospel 
had been considered by the deepest thinkers of various 
schools the principal evidence of its divine origin. It is 
needless to trace the progress of this interesting discussion. 
The Transcendental school at length emerged into a distinct, 
flourishing life. Inspiration is not limited to men of the 
Bible ; the soul has voices within it which reveal eternal 
truth : let the individual hearken for fliese utterances of the 
universal spirit, and no longer lean on the crutches of author- 
ity. The maxim, " Every man his own prophet," seemed to 
some to need no further verification when Mr. Emerson, pro- 
fessing a carelessness of logic, as with the insight though 
with none of the assumption of an oracle, and with the sub- 
tile, exquisite charm of his peculiar genius, began to impro- 
vise in the hearing of sympathetic listeners of both sexes. 
A crisis was produced, however, by Parker's relegating 
miracles to the transient in Christianity, and by his classifi- 
cation of Christianity with the ethnic religions as a purely 
natural product. Without renouncing theism, he afiirmed 
that its doctrine issues from the progress of religion on the 
plane of nature, and is not derived fi-om supernatural teach- 
ing. The truths which the Unitarians had made the sum 
and substance of the Gospel he asserted that we know intu- 
itively. What need, then, to use Paley's phrase, of " the 
splendid apparatus of miracles," to prov^e what we already 
know by the light of Nature ? The immortality of the soul, 
it had been said, is established by the resurrection of Jesus. 
But it is easier, Parker declared, to prove that we are im- 
mortal than to prove the resurrection. In short, he pro- 
nounced the evidence of miracles superfluous : there was no 
dignus mndice nodus. K there was nothing to prove, why 
should there be any proof ? The essentials of Christianity 
had been reduced to a minimum y that minimum Parker 
conveyed over to natural theology. 



278 CHANNTNG AS A PHILOSOPHER AND THEOLOGIAN-. 

As between the older Unitariaus and the orthodox, so 
now between the conservative Unitarians and the Radicals, 
there was a striking difference in the tj^e of cultm^e. The 
intuitional party had given a hospitable and eager welcome 
to the continental literature, not onlj to the metaphysicians 
and theologians, like Consin, Schleiermacher, and De Wette, 
but also to the poets and critics — to such as Herder and 
Schiller, and especially to Goethe. Carlyle's critical essays, 
before and after he began to pour out the powerful jargon 
which became the characteristic of his style, were eagerly 
read, and the new evangel of "sincerity, unconscious genius, 
and hero-worship mingled its stream in the current already 
swollen by its Teutonic tributaries. The memoir of that 
woman of rare intellectual gifts, Margaret Fuller, gives one 
a lively impression of the enthusiasm awakened by the Eu- 
ropean authors. To men like Professor [N^orton, a student 
of German, but who had derived no very agreeable concep- 
tion of the German mind fi*om the earlier Eationalistic 
writers whom he had been called upon to confute — to men 
like him, highly cultivated, according to the older standard, 
by the perusal of Locke and the English classics, and whose 
favorite poet was not Goethe but Mrs. Hemans, this influx 
of continental speculative mysticism and poetry was odious 
in the extreme. Some of the devotees of the new cultm-e 
cherished ardent visions of an improved organization of 
society, in which existing abuses and hindrances to intellec- 
tual progress should be swept away. The Brook Farm As- 
sociation, with its highly educated circle of members, was 
one fruit of this class of ideas. 

Mr. Parker was not the man to hide his light under a 
bushel. The open avowal in the pulpit of opinions which 
had commonly been considered infidel, made it necessary to 
draw lines. This, on several accounts, was awkward. There 
was, to be sure, a real difference between those who admitted 
and those who denied a miraculous element in Christianity. 
But the promoters of the Unitarian movement had made 



CIIANNING AS A PHILOSOPHER AND THEOLOGIAN. 279 

large professions of liberality. They had called for an un- 
restricted mental freedom. They had uttered a constant 
protest against " the system of exclusion," which thrusts 
men out of the pale of the church for their opinions. They 
had made it a merit to cast off the yoke of creeds. ]^ow it 
seemed requisite to construct a creed, to define Christianity, 
to separate between liberality and license, and practically to 
excommunicate ministers, not for an alleged want of the 
Christian spirit, but for their doctrines. It is always embar- 
rassing for a party of freedom and of progress to have to 
change front, and take the role of conservatives. It is easy 
to taunt them with inconsistency, to contrast their former 
professions with their present conduct, to make it seem at 
least that they are apostates from their principles, or that 
they have contended only for that precise measure of free- 
dom which w^as fitted to their own need. How far these 
reproaches were just or unjust, there is no need that we 
should inquire here. 'No one will doubt that the appear- 
ance of Parkerism was a highly unwelcome phenomenon, 
and a rather unmanageable one, to the leading representa- 
tives of the liberal theology. What added to the difficulty 
was, that there might not be that amount of agreement 
among themselves which would appear requisite if a creed 
were to be framed that should embrace even so much as a 
tolerably precise definition of the authority to be ascribed 
to the Scriptures and to Christ. 

We are concerned now with the view taken of Parker's 
position by Channing. He naturally leaned strongly to an 
intuitional philosophy. We have seen how he was drawn 
away from Locke by the influence of Price. He had made 
much of the moral and spiritual faculties of man, and of 
the spontaneous response which the contents of the Gospel 
call forth from human nature. There were not wanting, 
then, affinities to draw him towards the new school of Lib- 
erals. On the other hand, however, he was deeply attached 
to historical Christianity. His biography contains a nimi- 



280 CHANNING- AS A PHILOSOPHER AND THEOLOGIAN. 

ber of memorable and beautiful letters in which he expresses 
himself respecting Parkerism temperately but frankly. In 
their whole tone they manifest, in the most attractive way, 
the loveliness of his Christian spirit. He felt that a rejec- 
tion of the mkacles was a rejection of Christ. The miracles, 
he says, are so interwoven with his history, that, if they are 
torn away, nothing is left ; that history is turned into fable ; 
the historical Christ is gone. But why not let him go? 
Fu'st, the soul craves not only the idea^ but the existence^ of 
perfection. Christian truth without Christ and his character 
loses a great portion of its quickening power. The mira- 
cles are among the manifestations of Christ's character ; 
they are symbolical of his spiritual influence — ^for these rea- 
sons they cannot be spared. The miracles are credible. 
God could not approach a darkened, sensual world by mere 
abstract teaching. The inward perfection of Christ is itself 
a miracle, which renders the outward acts of superhuman 
power easy of belief. Charming recoils fi'om Pantheism, 
which he sees to be latent in the mind of the new school of 
" true spiritualists." Speaking of a sermon which he had 
heard on " the loneliness of Christ," he says : " I claim lit- 
tle resemblance to my divine Friend and Saviour, but I 
seem doomed to drink of this cup with him to the last. I 
see and feel the harm done by this crude speculation, while 
I also see much nobleness to bind me to its advocates. In 

its opinions generally I see nothing to give me hope 

The immense distance of us all fi'om Christ " in character 
is a fact so obvious that not to recognize it implies such 
a degree of self -ignorance, and of ignorance of human his- 
tory, " that one wonders how it can have entered a sound 
mind." "^ In these letters there is no unseemly denuncia- 
tion, but there is genuine, manly sorrow at the promulgation 
of opinions that are regarded as undermining historical 
Christianity. Had Charming gone a step fm-ther, and dis- 

* Memoir^ vol. ii., p. 448. 



CHANNING AS A PHILOSOPHER AND THEOLOGIAN. 281 

tinctly perceived the necessity of a present, abiding relation 
of tlie soul to the living Christ, he would naturally have 
advanced to a view of his person not dissonant in substance 
from that of the Catholic theology, and would have per- 
ceived at the same time how indispensable to Christian piety 
is the assumption of the reality of the Gospel history. He 
cannot desert the old anchorage, but his reasons for not 
doing so are less convincing than if he could have pointed 
out plainly how a shipwreck is the necessary and immediate 
consequence. Christ was really, if not theoretically, more 
to him than a teacher and an example. 

From the consideration of the theology of Channing we 
turn to his ethical writings. The two great subjects with 
regard to which he produced a powerful and lasting impres- 
sion upon public opinion are War and Slavery. It is not 
these gigantic evils in their economical bearings that engage 
his interest. The predominant thought is the wrong which 
they involve, and the suffering which they inflict. His 
strong sense of the dignity of human nature excites in him 
a reprobation of whatever degrades man. His discourse on 
War is for the most part a well-guarded statement. He 
does not weaken the impression which is made by his de- 
scription of the horrors of war by taking up an extravagant 
position as to its wrongfulness — as Mr. Sumner afterwards 
did in his oration on " The True Grandeur of Nations," the 
main points of which, so far as they are sound, are suggested 
in Channing's discussion, where they are presented without 
the pedantry, magniloquence, and tincture of egotism which 
were the common blemishes of Mr. Sumner's otherwise im- 
pressive discourses. Mr. Sumner laid down the false propo- 
sition that in the present age there is no peace that is not 
honorable, and no war that is not dishonorable. He made 
no exceptions to the assertion of the moral unlawfulness of 
war. He advocated arbitration as a substitute for the strug- 
gle of arms, without intimating that there are cases, like our 
late contest for the Union, where the party that deems itself 



282 CHA2s'XING AS A PHILOSOPHZE A^'D THEOLOGIAX. 

wrong or iiiTaded will never, and onglit never, to refer tlie 
adjudication of the controversy to a tliii'd power. Clianning 
jiLstijies defensive warfare. His principle does not go so 
far as to recpiii'e liim to condemn Greece for repelling tlie 
armies of Xerxes, Washington for fighting the troops of 
George III., or Germany for driving back the late French 
invasion. It is not ti-ne that strict self-defence is the only 
lawful grotmd for taking up arms. There are wars imder- 
taken for pmposes of humanity, and there will continue to 
be such so long as Bulgarian massacres are perpetrated on 
earth. Canon [Mozley. in an insti'tictive sermon on War, 
has shown how wars necessarily arise from the very exis- 
tence of nations as corporate miities, there being no com- 
mon tribunal for the settlement of international disputes, 
and no tiibunal, so far as we can see at present, being possi- 
ble, to which every instance of grave national aggression 
could be referred. Force is the defender of justice and 
right within the limits of each nation, and so likewise as 
between peoples. Christianity, in recognizing nations as a 
part of the divine economy and the obligations of ci^dl obedi- 
ence, has sanctioned war as an ultimate resort against flagrant 
and destruciive injustice, just as it has sanctioned force 
when wielded by the magistrate for the ends of public order 
witliin the bounds of each civil community. Charming 
might v^eli have placed the right of war on a somewhat 
broader philosophical gi'ound. He has not done full justice 
to tlie noble qualities of hmnan natm^e. such as coinage and 
seK-sacrince, which war may call into exercise ; although 
he has words of praise for " the soldier of principle, who 
exposes Ms life for a cause which his conscience approves, 
and who mingles clemency and mercy with the joy of 
triumph.'' These, however, are slight criticisms upon a 
production which breathes in every line the noblest spirit of 
Chi'istian love, and, without any admixtiu^e of false rhetoric, 
paints truly as well as vividly the criminality and misery 
which wars occasion. 



CIIANNING AS A PHILOSOPHER AND THEOLOGIAN. 283 

The papers which Chamiing wrote on the slavery question 
are among the most meritorious of his writings, lie never 
forgets his aim, which is to impress upon the consciences 
of men at the South as well as the ^N^orth the injustice of 
slave-holding, and to extricate the national authority from 
complicity with it. He does not allow himself to be tempted 
into passionate declamation. On the other hand, there is 
notliing tame or timid in the condemnation which he ex- 
presses. Channing, as is well known, did not connect himself 
with the Anti-slavery Society, and objected to the unmeas- 
ured vituperation in which Anti-slavery leaders were prone 
to indulge. ]^o one should wish to pluck from the brows of 
Mr. Garrison and his associates any laurels which they 
fairly earned by their long and unflinching warfare against 
the slave-power. It is a fact, however, that they were dis- 
unionists ; and that the great political opposition to slavery 
which set in with full vigor at the epoch of the Missouri Com- 
promise, and which went forward with fluctuating, indeed, 
but on the whole with increasing energy, until it triumphed 
in the election of Mr. Lincoln and in the emancipation of 
the slaves through the victory over the Rebellion, — it is a 
fact that this political opposition moved on to its complete 
success without the sympathy or aid of the Anti-slavery agi- 
tators to whom we have referred. It is another fact that 
numbers of sound and earnest antagonists of slavery, includ- 
ing numerous ministers, broke oft: their co-operation with 
Mr. Garrison from unwillingness to identify themselves with 
other heterogeneous reforms, as they were called, of which 
he made liimseK the champion. Dr. Channing understood 
the value of the American Union as well as the wrong of 
slavery. He wished to preserve the one and to destroy the 
other. It is true that he considered the annexation of 
Texas, for the purpose for which it was desired, to be so 
grave and mischievous a departure from the design of the 
national Union, as to furnish a suflicient reason for its disso- 
lution. But of the importance of one united government 



284: CHANNING AS A PHILOSOPHER AND THEOLOGIAN, 

he had. the deepest conviction. There were times when the 
frequent threats of dissolution at the South, and the en- 
croachments of slavery, led many at the A^orth to speak 
lightly of the American Union. All whose opinion is worth 
anything can now see that this was a mistake ; and that the 
interests of civilization, and the interests of philanthropy, 
would have suffered a terrible blow if the Union had been 
broken up, either as the result of the labors of Abolitionists 
at the JSTorth, or of slave-extensionists at the South. Chan- 
ning had to endure the censure of zealous men for what 
they considered his excessive moderation in the use of the 
vocabulary of invective. But this quality will redound to his 
lasting honor. No one doubted his courage. Xo one be- 
lieved that he was restrained by the fear of unpopularity. 
It was the spirit of truth and the spirit of love imited, which 
held him back from unwise and intemperate speech, and from 
measures which might be dictated by an honest zeal, but 
which did not tend to secure the end for which they were 
devised. His philanthropic zeal was not tainted with fanati- 
cism. It was not a fault, that, while uttering his protest 
plainly and earnestly, he shunned exaggeration. The agita- 
tion which was kept up by the disunionist Anti-slavery 
leaders had its effect on the conscience of the people ; but 
such an effect was produced, to say the least, in an equal 
measure, and in a way to provoke far less of irritation and 
disgust, by the arguments of Channing. 

On the whole, while Channing cannot be said to have had 
a very deep comprehension of the evangelical creed, or to 
have contributed to the advancement of scientific theology, 
those who reject his theological opinions may be glad to see 
him — to quote the language of his epitaph — "honored 
throughout Christendom for his eloquence and courage in 
maintaining and advancing the great cause of truth, religion, 
and human freedom." 



THE SYSTEM OF DK. N. W. TAYLOR. 285 



THE SYSTEM OF DR. N. W. TAYLOR IN ITS CON- 
NECTION WITH PRIOR NEW ENGLAND THE- 
OLOGY.* 

Philip Melanchthon, a few days before he died, wrote on 
a loose sheet of paper a memorandum of reasons why death 
should be less unwelcome to him. Among them was the 
prospect of escaping " from the fury of theologians."f The 
outcry against him, that began before Luther's death, in- 
creased afterwards ; and men who copied in excess the faults 
of Luther, without a grain of his nobleness, were barking and 
howling round the great scholar — the Preceptor of Germany, 
the St. John of the Reformation — for presuming to deviate 

* [This Essay (from the JSfeio Englander iox 1868), was occasioned by an 
article on ''Presbyterian Reunion, " from the pen of the late Dr. Charles 
Hodge, of Princeton. One of the objections made by Dr. Hodge to re- 
union was the circumstance that ministers in accord with the theological 
opinions of Dr. Taylor were received into the pulijits of the "New-School " 
Presbyterian Church. This objection he fortified by alleging objections 
to Dr. Taylor's theology. In reprinting this essay, it has been abridged 
by leaving out some passages of no permanent interest. It was impracti- 
cable to omit all polemical references with respect to the interpretation 
of Dr. Taylor's system, as these, in a few cases, are so interwoven with 
the text of the article that they could not well be eliminated. The 
Outlines of TJieology, to which reference is made, is the work of Dr. A. A. 
Hodge, based partly on the lectures of the senior Dr Hodge. This able 
work has since been rewritten and much expanded. (R. Carter and 
Brothers, 1879.)] 

f The whole memorandum is pathetic : — " Discedes a peccatis ; libera- 
beris ab eerumnis efc a rabie theologorum ; venies in lucem ; intueberis 
Filium Dei ; disces ilia mira arcana, quee in hac vita intelligere non potu- 
isti — cur sic simus conditi, qualis sit copulatio duarum naturarum in 
Christo." 



2S6 THE 5T5Ti::sr of de. tayhoe rs- co^^XEcno:s■ 

in some particulars from Lutlier's docti-iae. He cotild not 
help agreeing with. Calvin on the Lord's Snpper ; he eonld 
not admit the slaverr of the wiU as Lnther had proclaimed 
it ; he wonld go, perhaps, too far in retaining old fonns of 
worship for the sake of peace. For these conscientious opin- 
ions, the author of the Angsbnrg Confession was pnrsned 
with nnrelenting hostUitr ; so that a half centnry after he 
died, the leading professor of theology at Wittenberg was 
so enraged at hearing him referred to bj a student as an 
authority for some doctrinal statement, that, before the eyes 
of ah. he tore his poi*trait from the wall and trampled on it. 

There is such a thing, then, as rabies theologorwm . Of 
course we do not mean to imply that Dr. Taylor was ever in 
the same degree the object of it. Tet, it was well that even 
he was made of sterner stuff than poor ^lelanchthon. He 
never complained of a manly, courteous opposition to his 
opinions. He who brings forward new ideas has no right to 
claim exemption from unfavorable criticism. But he did 
feel that there was far more effort to make him out heretical, 
to rob him of his good name among orthodox Christians, and 
to stir up prejudice against him, than to judge f airlv, or even 
to hear can<lidly, his teaching. It did not diminish his sense 
of wrong that in some cases the stabs upon his reputation 
were inflicted with a bland and unctuous manner, with pro- 
fessions of personal regard, and under the guise of a holy 
zeal for the truth. Dr. Taylor ^vas himself an honest, mag- 
nanimous, open-hearted man ; and he knew well who, among 
his opponents, were moved by a conscientious dissent from 
his opinions, and who of them^ were instigated by seK-inter- 
est or by resentment for imagined slicrhts. 

Dr. Taylor was a metaphysician: he was a philosopher, 
who has had no equal in this department, on oui- side of the 
ocean, since President Edwards. It was in some respects a 
misfortune that his philosophical views and reasonings were 
brought forward in the form of theological discussions. In 
this coimtry, not only every minister, but most laymen, sup- 



WITH PRIOR NEW ENGLAND TPIEOLOGY. 287 

pose themselves, to be adepts in the science of theology. 
They expect tliat everything shall be made perfectly easy of 
comprehension to everybody. Hence, so clear, common- 
sense a thinker as Dr. Taylor, who hated all mysticism, was 
constantly complained of as too '' metaphysical," as obscure 
and nnintelligible. Itinerant preachers, who had no train- 
ing in mental science, and little capacity for receiving one, 
felt that there must be something dreadful under that cloud 
which their eyes could not penetrate. They felt sure that it 
was not " the simplicity of the Gospel." So President Ed- 
wards, in his day, frequently alludes to the reproach that was 
cast upon him because he reasoned metaphysically. More- 
over, bringing forward his philosophical opinions exclusively 
in their bearing on theological questions of present interest, 
Dr. Taylor would be liable to excite the opposition of exist- 
ing theological parties. Calm discussion would be inter- 
rupted by ecclesiastical interference. Had he brought the 
results of his thinking into the forum of philosophy, where 
they might be examined, as are the tenets of Leibnitz, or 
Locke, or Dugald Stewart, who supposes that all of those 
who actually took up arms against him would have deemed 
themselves qualified by nature or education for this work of 
assault ? 

In our judgment, it is a grand merit of our ^N^ew England 
theologians, that while holding the past in due reverence, 
they have not bowed down before it, but have expected prog- 
ress. They have seen that the denial of the hope of progress 
in theology — that is, in the understanding and expression of 
the truths of the Bible — would have shut out the Protestant 
Keformation, as well as every other access of light since 
theology began to be a science. Smalley, while engaged in 
combating theories of Emmons which he earnestly rejected, 
is careful to add : 

" It has doubtless been perceived by every attentive reader, that the 
sentiments remarked upon, are not objected against merely, if at all, be- 



288 THE SYSTEM OF DR. TAYLOR IN CONNECTION 

cause of their being innovations ; there may be danger no doubt, of hold- 
ing- over tenaciously the traditions of the elders, as well as of departing 
too hastily from the long received opinions of our ancestors. There have 
been many innovations in Christian theology, which were doubtless real 
improvements. Calvin himself was a great innovator in his day ; and it 
cannot reasonably be supposed, that either he, or any of the other first 
reformers, just emerging from the darkness of popery, had all the light 
that was ever to come into the world. " * 

To oiu' mind there is something noble in this willing, 
hopeful spirit of progress and emancipation from slavish 
deference to human authority. They mark a truly scienti- 
fic, as well as a truly Christian temper. There is no con- 
tempt for the past ; there is no rash and flighty desertion of 
received doctrine ; but there is a readiness to learn, to modi- 
fy traditional tenets at the coming of new light, and a dis- 
position to confi'ont the errors of good men by dispassionate 
argument instead of church anathemas. How much better 
is Kew England to-day, and the Christianity of the country 
too, for the line of theologians fi'om Edwards to Taylor — 
not to speak of the living — who, whatever may have been 
their eccentricities or mistakes, have dared to think for 
themselves and have endeavored to present the truths of the 
Gospel in more reasonable as well as defensible forms of 
statement. This fi-eedom is an invaluable possession. Where- 
ever it may be lightly esteemed, let it be still cherished in 
[N'ew England ! 

The present seems a favorable opportunity for setting 
forth the theological system of Dr. Taylor, in itself and in 
its historical relations. This we midertake more as an ex- 
positor than as a critic, and shall therefore in this place ab- 
stain, generally speaking, fi'om either \Tndicating or opposing 
his distinctive tenets. 

Everybody who is much acquainted with Xew England 
theology knows that the elder Edwards set out to clear the 

* Smalley, Works, ii., 421 



WITH PRIOR NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY. 289 

Calvinistic system of difficulties and objections that were felt 
both by its advocates and opponents ; an attempt which was 
continued by subsequent theologians. "The Calvinists," 
writes the younger Edwards, describing the state of things 
when his father commenced his work, " themselves began to 
be ashamed of their own cause, and to give it up, so far at 
least as relates to liberty and necessity. This was true, es- 
pecially of Drs. Watts and Doddridge, who in their day 
were accounted leaders of the Calvinists." ■"^' The full justice 
of this remark will be evident to any one who will examine 
the theological writings of these two eminent men. We 
know not where to look for more striking specimens of 
weak and inconsequent reasoning than they present ; and 
this impression is heightened in the case of Doddridge, by 
the quasi mathematical form in which his lectures are cast. 
The sum of the charge brought against the Calvinists was 
that '' the sense in which they interpreted the sacred writ- 
ings was inconsistent with human liberty, moral agency, ac- 
countableness, praise, and blame." " How absurd, it was 
urged, that a man totally dead should be called upon to arise 
and perform the duties of the living and sound — that we 
should need a divine influence to give us a new heart, and 
yet be commanded to make a new heart and a right spirit — 
that a man has no power to come to Christ, and yet be com- 
manded to come to him on pain of damnation ! " f 

The fundamental points in the indictment preferred by 
the Arminian writers, Edwards took up in his two treatises, 
that on the Will and that on Original Sin. It had been the 
Augustinian, mediaeval, and old Protestant doctrine, that 
the posterity of Adam are answerable for Adam's sin, and 
therefore both sinful and condemned at birth, because they 
really participated in it. They are condemned and punished 
for their own deed in Adam. After the notion of a covenant 
with Adam — the so-called Federal theology, which is now 

* Works, i, 482. f Ibid., p. 482. 



290 THE SYSTEM OF DE. TATLOE IN CONNECTION 

maintained at Princeton — was superimposed, in the course 
of the seventeenth centnrj, on the realistic conception, still 
theologians, when they were pressed by objections, fell back 
on the old idea of a true and real participation on the part 
of mankind in their progenitor's act. But the inconsistency 
of this doctrine with other accepted beliefs — for example, 
with Creationism, or the doctrine that each soul is created 
by itself, in opposition to the Traducian theory, and more 
than all with the Lockian philosophy, in which philosophical 
realism found no countenance, broke down this prop. Par- 
ticipation in Adam's sin did not cohere with nominalism. 
The opponents of Calvinism now demanded with one voice 
some explanation of the imputation of a sin to the descen- 
dants of Adam, which it was confessed they had no agency in 
committing. They inquired how the infliction of an infinite 
penalty upon them, for an act that was done by an individual 
long before they were created, is consistent with those intui- 
tive principles of justice which are written on the heart and 
sanctioned, directly or indirectly, everywhere in the Bible. 

In the latter part of his treatise on original sin. President 
Edwards endeavors to meet " that great objection," as he 
styles it, " against the imputation of Adam's sin to his pos- 
terity, that such imputation is unjust and unreasonable, in- 
asmuch as Adam and his. posterity are not one and the 
same." * His whole tone implies that he considers this a 
grave and formidable objection, and his great powers are 
tasked to the utmost in meeting it. He meets it by denying 
the fact which it assumes, that Adam and his posterity are 
distinct agents. The guilt of a man at his birth is declared 
to be " the guilt of the sin by which the species first re- 
belled against God."f " The sin of apostasy is not theirs, 
merely because God imputes it to them, but it is truly and 
properly theirs, and on that groitnd God imputes it to 

* Wcyrks (Dwight's ed.), vol. ii., p. 343. 
t Ibid, p. 543, 



WITH PEIOR NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY. 291 

them." ^' His curious speculations upon the nature of iden- 
tity are to demonstrate that the sin of the posterity of Adam 
is one and the same — identically, numerically the same — 
with his. The first rising of a sinful inclination in any and 
every individual since Adam is that consent to the first sin 
which they really gave in him, and which, in the individuali- 
zation of the species, appears in the soul of every person at 
birth. In short, he answers the objection that we did not 
commit the first sin, by affirming that we did. 

The second great objection of the Arminians, that accord- 
ing to Calvinism men are required to do what they are said 
to have no power to do — that the freedom of the will is de- 
nied, and fatalism substituted for it — Edwards particularly 
considers in the treatise on the Will. He endeavors to con- 
fute them on this point by his doctrine of natural ability 
coupled with moral inability. The germs of this treatise 
are in Locke's chapter on " Power." f Locke there main- 
tains that " freedom consists in the dependence of the exist- 
ence, or non-existence, of any action upon our volition of 
it ; " :j: that liberty relates to events consecutive to volition. 
Given the volition, will the thing chosen follow in accord- 
ance with it ? If so, we are to that extent free. This is 
the proper, and the only proper, use of the terms freedom 
and liberty in their application to personal agents. Hence, 
Locke declares that the " question whether a man be at lib- 
erty to will which of the two he pleases," is absurd ; for 
this, he adds, is to ask " whether a man can will what he 
wills, or be pleased with what he is pleased with. A ques- 
tion which, I think, needs no answer ; and they who can 
make a question of it, must suppose one will to determine 
the acts of another, and another to determine that, and so 
on in infinittim.^^ § Here is Edwards's refutation of the 
Arminian objections, in a nutshell. He defines one's lib- 



* Ibid., p. 559, t Ibid., chap. xxi. 

X " Univ. Ed.," p. 159. § Ibid., p. 158. 



292 THE SYSTEM OF DR. TAYLOR IN CONNECTION 

ertj to be freedom " from hindrance or impediment in the 
way of doing or conducting in any respect as he wills." * 
l^ecessitj, constraint, coercion, and all similar terms are in- 
applicable to the will, for the reason that they all presup- 
pose an opposition of the will, which in the case of a choice 
is by the supposition excluded.f That only is necessary 
which choice cannot prevent. :}; 

Casting out these terms, he then, by a remorseless appli- 
cation of the maxim — every event must have a cause — to 
the sjpecifiGation of choice — to the choice of one thing rather 
than another — established his doctrine of determinism, and 
drove the Arminians to the wall. There was full liberty, 
there was no necessity, and yet there was an absolute cer- 
tainty given by the antecedents ; and on this foreordained 
certainty, the Calvinistic doctrine of predestination might 
have a sure foundation. 

What did Edwards mean, then, by his " natural ability " ? 
He meant that nothing but a right choice or inclination is 
needed by a wicked man in order to repent and turn fi*om 
his ways. •^' There are faculties of mind, and a capacity of 
nature, and everything else sufficient ; nothing is wanting 
but a will." § But coexisting with this natural ability, is a 
moral inability, by which is meant a fixed and habitual in- 
clination such as renders a perseverance in evil — a persever- 
ance of the will in its e^dl choice — perfectly certain. 

It is, therefore, according to Edwards, an impropriety of 
speech to say that a sinner cannot repent and be holy. We 
say that a man cannot accomplish an event, when the event 
will not take place in consequence of, or on the supposition 
of, his choice. But here the event is itself a choice ; it is a 
case where doing is choosing, jj For a like reason, Edwards 

* ^yoTks, ii., 38. t Ibid., ii., 26 et passim. 

tibid., ii., 84. § Ibid., ii., 38. 

I It is nothing new for Necessitarians to deny the propriety of apply- 
ing the terms "necessity," " coaction," ''inability," and the like, to acta 
of the will. Their argument on this point is concisely put by Thomas 



WITH PRIOR NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY. 293 

continually treats the question whether a man can choose 
otherwise than he does, as absurd. For what does it sig- 
nify? It signifies, when reduced to a proposition, either 
that if he chooses in a particular way, he chooses in that 
way — an identical proposition, or that he will choose in a 
particular way, if he chooses to choose in that way — which 
leads to an infinite series. Thus he rules out the question 
of the power of contrary choice, in the ordinary understand- 
ing of the phrase, by his definitions. To ask if a man can 
repent, or if he can repent if he choose, or if he can repent 
if he will, is either mere tautology, or involves the blunder 
of supposing an infinite series of choices. He silences the 
objector by depriving him of the power to put his question, 
or by pronouncing that question an absurdity. Man is re- 
sponsible because he is naturally able ; he is helpless because 
he is morally unable.-^" 

Aquinas. " lllud quod movetur ab altero, dicitur cog-i, si moveatur con- 
tra inclinationem propriam, sed si moveatur ab alio, quod sibi dat pro- 
priam inclinationeiB, non dicitur cogi," " Sic igitur Deus movendo vo- 
luntatem non cogit ipsam, quia dat ei ejus propriam inclinationem." 
"Sic moveri ex se non repugnat ei, quod movetur ab alio." P. i. Qu. 
105, Art. 4. 

There is great similarity between the definitions and arguments of Ed- 
wards and those of Hobbes and Collins. He says that he had not read 
Hobbes, and although Dugald Stewart implies that he had read Collins, 
this is not at all probable. Sir William Hamilton once laade a remark 
to us, which implied that he considered Edwards a borrower from Col- 
lins. On repeating Hamilton's observation to Dr. Taylor, he said that 
probably Edwards had never seen a copy of Collins. 

* Sometimes Edwards appears to leave the beaten track, and really to 
take up the question of the power of contrary choice. One instance is 
in Part iii. , § iv. (ii. 160), where he says that "the inclination," in 
the case of the original determination or act of the will, "is unable to 
change itself ; and that for this plain reason, that it is unable to incline to 
change itself." But the context shows that the unable is only a moral 
inability, or certainty ; and the reason alleged is still the incompatibility 
of opposite choices (or inclinations) at the same time. " Present choice 
cannot at present choose to be otherwise: for that would be a^jpre^e^it 
to choose something diverse from what is at present chosen." The italics 
belong to Edwards. 



294 THE SYSTEM OF DR. TAYLOK IN CONNECTION 

Unquestionably the statements of President Edwards on 
this subject are verbally at variance with the Calvinistic 
symbols and standard writers. The old form of doctrine 
was that men since the fall are free to sin, but have no other 
freedom. But the frequent assertion of Edwards is that 
men now have all the liberty that ever existed or that could 
ever possibly enter into the heart of any man to conceive.^ 
This, however, is a verbal incongruity, due to his peculiar 
use of terms. Yet his theory of the will differs from that 
of the old Calvinists, if we except the high supralapsarian 
view, in that they, like Augustine, explicitly gave to Adam 
in his act of apostasy the power of contrary choice.f And 
that " mutability " of will that was ascribed to him prior to 
transgression can find no place in President Edw^ards's notion 
of liberty.:]: 

The solution which Edwards offered of the problem of 

The nearest approach to a perfectly distinct and unequivocal assertion 
of properly necessitarian doctrine, which we remember in Edwards, is in 
the remark that the difference between natural and moral necessity 
" does not lie so much in the nature of the connection^ as in the two terms 
connected ; " the cause and effect in the case of moral necessity being of 
a moral kind. P. i. , § 4. 

* Letter to a Minister of the Church of Scotland^ vol. ii. 

f Comp. West. Confession^ chap, ix., iii. Man "hath wholly lost all 
ability of will to any spiritual good," etc. 

X It is remarkable that the Jansenists, in striving to make a distinction 
between their doctrine and that of Calvin, use phraseology very similar 
to that of Edwards. Men can resist grace if they will. Calvin is quite 
wrong, says Pascal, in the seventeenth of the Provincial Letters, in hold- 
ing that the sinner cannot resist grace — even " la grace efBcace et victo- 
rieuse." " Ce n'est pas qu'il ne puisse toujours s'en eloigner, et qu'il ne 
s'en eloignat effectivement, s'il le voulait." But what does he mean by 
can — by 'power. It is the Augustinian -potestas si vuU, as Mozley has 
pointed out in his Augustinian Doctrine of Predestination, p. 427. Cal- 
vin would have admitted all that Pascal says, for he did not hold, as was 
represented by the Jansenists, that the will is moved like an inanimate 
thing. See (e. g.) Inst, ii., iii., 14. The Dominicans endeavored to dis- 
tinguish their doctrine from that of the Jansenists, as the latter professed 
to reject the doctrine of Calvin. But the difference in both cases was 
merely verbal. 



WITH PEIOR NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY. 295 

original sin failed to satisfy Lis successors. Hopkins, in cer- 
tain passages, seems to adopt tlie realistic propositions of his 
teaclier. Of Adam it is said that '' being by divine con- 
stitution the natural head and father of the whole race, they 
were all included and created in him as one whole which 
could not be separated ; and, therefore, he is treated as the 
whole in this transaction." * But looking at all that he 
says on the subject, we find his doctrine to be that men are 
sinners from birth through a divine constitution establish- 
ing an infallible connection between Adam's sin and their 
sin. If he sins, it is certain that they will begin their ex- 
istence as sinners. But all sin consists in exercise or act. 
And '' the children of Adam are not guilty of his sin, are 
not punished, and do not suffer for that, any further than 
they implicitly or expressly approve of his transgression by 
sinning as he did ; their total moral corruption and sinful- 
ness is as much their own sin, as it could be if it were not 
in consequence of the sin of the first father of the human 
race, or if Adam had not first sinned." f It is explicitly 
held that men do not become sinners as a penalty of the 
law for Adam's sin. Their sin is at once a consequence or 
effect of Adam's sin by the divine constitution, and their 
own free act. Yet they begin to sin at the beginning of 
their existence. " As soon as children are capable of the 
least motion and exercise of the heart which is contrary to 
the law of God, such motions and exercises are sin in them, 
though they are ignorant of it." " Persons may be moral 
agents, and sin without knowing what the law of God is, of 
what nature their exercises are, and while they have no con- 
sciousness that they are wrong." 

Hopkins brought in the doctrine of divine efficiency in the 
production of sin. He considered this a legitimate deduc- 
tion from the teachings of Edwards. It had been held that 
sinful choices, not less than holy, result with infallible cer- 

* WorU (Boston ed., 1852), i., 199. \ Ibid., i., 335. 



296 THE SYSTEM OF DR. TAYLOR IN CONNECTION 

tainty from causes which God had set in operation. He is, 
then, the first cause to whose power the effect must be at- 
tributed. The efficiency that issues in the origination of a 
sinful choice emanates from him.^ His agency is universal. 
In Emmons, Hopkinsianism is seen in full flower. All 
men become sinners by Adam. He did not make them sin- 
ners by causing them to commit his first offence. " We could 
no more eat of the forbidden fruit before we were born, than 
Adam could have eaten of it before he was created." ]^or 
did he make men sinners by transferring to them the guilt 
of his first transgression. " The guilt of any action can no 
more be transferred from the agent to another person, than 
the action itself." ]^or did Adam make men sinners by con- 
veying to them a morally corrupted nature. " There is no 
morally corrupt nature distinct fi-om free, voluntary, sinful 
exercises." Adam had no such nature. Supposing that he 
had such a nature, he could not convey it to his descend- 
ants ; for '' the soul is not transmitted from father to son 
by natural generation.f The soul is spiritual ; and what is 
spiritual is indivisible ; and what is indivisible is incapable 
of propagation." Adam's sin caused our sin only as God 
determined that in case Adam should sin, we should be 
brought into existence morally depraved. 

"Accordingly, in consequence of Adam's first transgression, God now 
brings his posterity into the world in a state of moral depravity. But 
how ? The answer is easy. When God forms the souls of infants, he 
forms them with moral powers, and makes them men in miniature. And 
being men in miniature, he works in them as he does in other men, both 
to will and to do of his good pleasure ; or produces those moral exercises 
in their hearts in which moral depravity properly and essentially consists. 
Moral depravity can take place nowhere but in moral agents ; and moral 
agents can never act but only as they are acted on by a divine operation. 
It is just as easy, therefore, to account for moral depravity in infancy, as 
in any other period of life." | 

* Works, i., 233. f Works, iv, , Sermon xxxv. 

:j:Ibid., iv., Sermon xxvi.,p. 357. 



WITH PRIOR NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY. 297 

The objection that God is made the author of sin, is an- 
swered by the assertion that sin pertains to the nature of 
actions and not to their cause. He who creates the poison 
of rattlesnakes has not in himself the quality to which he 
gives existence. Edwards had suggested this answer in his 
doctrine that "• the essence of the virtue and vice of the dis- 
positions of the heart and acts of will, lies not in their cause, 
but their nature." "^ 

On one point in the doctrine as to the conditions of re- 
sponsible agency, Emmons went a step beyond Hopkins. 
Emmons maintains that a knowledge or perception of law is 
a prerequisite of moral, accountable action. He contends 
that infants have this consciousness of duty. Without it, he 
says, they would be mere agents, but not moral agents ; and 
if mere agents he maintains that they never would become 
moral agents.f 

The question w^as, how are men responsible for sin which 
they could not have prevented and for continuing to sin when 
they cannot stop? Theology, in the Hopkinsian line, had 
reached the propositions that no individual is accountable 
for any sin which he does not personally conmiit by violating 
known law ; that sin begins with the personal life of each 
man in this world, and is not the penalty of the offence of 
Adam, but only consequent upon it in the divine plan and 
appointment. But with these doctrines there was coupled a 
more bald determinism than Christian theology had ever 
tolerated. A divine efficiency was made the cause of sinful 
choices, and sin, not less than holiness, was declared to be the 
product of divine agency. 

Among the adversaries of the Hopkinsian peculiarities is 
Dr. Sm alley. He discards the notion of a federal represen- 
tation in Adam, one individual acting for the rest, and com- 
pares it to "a draught in a lottery." :j: He rejects likewise 



Works, vol. ii., 186 seq. f Ibid., iv., Sermon xi. 

X Works (Hartford, 1803), i., 180, Serm. xi. 



298 ' THE SYSTEM OF DR. TAYLOE IN CONNECTION 

Edwards's theory of our identity with Adam, which, he says, 
is '' diving into metaphysics below the bottom of things or 
quite beyond tlie fathom of common-sense." * Denying all 
imputation of Adam's sin to his posterity, he holds that his 
sin occasions our sin from our birth ; but this sin is ours and 
not his, and cos ours it is condemned. So far he coincides 
with Emmons. But he differs in holding to a sinful propen- 
sity or " disposition back of exercises " — " prior to knowl- 
edge and prior to actual sin." f How shall he escape from 
the conclusion that God is the author of sin, as being the 
creator of the soul ? " Perhaps," he replies, the creation of 
sin by God " need not be supposed. Perhaps the depravity 
of a sinner may consist, primarily, in mere privation, or in the 
want of holy principles, and if so, it need not be created." :j: 
In this last hypothesis of the privative character of sin, 
whether he knew it or not, he followed a long line of think- 
ers, including Augustine and Aquinas, who struggled to 
avoid an inference to which their logic appeared irresistibly 
to carry them. Pie combats the theory of divine efficiency 
in the production of sin and in the hardening of men's 
hearts. He holds, too, that regeneration is the imparting 
of a new taste, relish, or disposition anterior to holy voli- 
tions, to which it gives rise. It is obvious that, on Smalley's 
own premises, this privation, which constitutes sin, is due to 
the make of the soul and occurs by necessary consequence 
from the act of the Creator. It is difficult to see the advan- 
tage of his theory, in this aspect of it, over that of Emmons. 
In more direct relation to Dr. Taylor's system is the 
theology of Dr. D wight. D wight rejects imputation. 
" Moral actions are not, so far as I can see, transferable 
from one being to another. The personal act of any agent 
is, in its very nature, the act of that agent solely ; and inca- 
pable of being participated by any other agent. Of course, 
the guilt of such a personal act is equally incapable of being 

* Works, L, p. 180. f Ibid., p. 188. % Ibid., p. 189. 



WITH PRIOR NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY. 299 

transferred or participated. Tlie guilt is inherent in the 
action ; and is attributable, therefore, to the agent only." '^ 
" ^or are the descendants of Adam punished for his trans- 
gression." f The Bible explicitly affirms that no man shall 
be punished for the sin of another. We become sinners in 
consequence of Adam's sin, but how we cannot explain. 
Inabilit}^ is disinclination. " The words ca7i and cannot are 
used in the Scriptures, just as they are used in the common 
intercourse of mankind, to express willingness or unwilling- 
ness." X The general expressions of Dwight on the nature 
of moral agency would lead one to conclude that he must hold 
all sin to consist in the wiKul transgression of known law. 
In the course of his sermon on the Temptation and Fall, he 
comes to the question. Why did God permit Adam to sin ? 
He observes of this question that it affects not the sin of 
Adam only, but all sin. He then states the distinction 
between the permission of sin, which he accepts, and the 
creating of it. '^ In the former case one man is the actor of 
his oion sin. His sin, therefore, is wholly his own ; charge- 
able only to himself ; chosen by Tiim unnecessarily, while 
possessed of a power to choose otherwise ; avoidable by 
him ; and of course guilty and righteously punishable." § 
He declares that "sin, universally, is no other than selfish- 
ness, or a preference of one's self to all other beings, and of 
one's private interests and gratifications to the w^ell-being 
of the universe, of God, and the intelligent creation." j 
" This," he says in another place, " is sin and all that in the 
Scriptures is meant by sin." ^ In his sermon on the be- 
nevolence of God, he speaks of sin, the opposite principle, 
as " that disposition in us, which God, by the dictates of his 
infinite benevolence is in a sense compelled to hate and punish, 
because it is a voluntary opposition to his oion perfect char-' 
acter, and a fixed enmity to the well-being of his crea- 

* WorJcs, Serm. xxxii. (ii., 2), f Ibid., p. 4. 

X Ibid., Serm-. cxxxiii. (iv., 467) . § Ibid., Serm. xxvii. (vi., 460). 

I Ibid., Serm. c. (iii., 464). 1 Ibid., Serm. Ixxx. (iii., 162). 



300 THE SYSTEM OF DE. TAYLOR IN CONNECTION 

tures." * How zealously Dr. Dwiglit controverts the theory 
of divine efficiency, as making God the author of sin, all 
of his readers are aware. In his sermon to prove that the 
soul is not a series of ideas and exercises, he says : "A finite 
agent has been supposed to exist, possessed of imderstand- 
ing to perceive, and ability to choose, that which was good 
or evil ; that which was conformed, or not conformed to 
the law under which it was placed. Whenever he was un- 
possessed of such an ability, it has been further supposed, 
that he was incapable of either virtue or vice. According 
to this mew of common 'sense, the scheme of the Scriptures 
seems everywhere to be formed." f But in his discourse on 
the " Derivation of Human Depravity fi'om Adam," he argues 
that death must be considered an indubitable proof of the 
existence of depravity in every moral being who is subject 
to death. That infants " are contaminated in their moral 
nature, and born in the likeness of apostate Adam " he 
holds to be a fact '^ inevitably proved, so far as the most 
unexceptionable analogy can prove anything, by the depraved 
moral conduct of every "infant who lives so long as to be 
capable of moral action." X In interpreting Dr. D wight, it 
is important to ascertain in what sense he used the terms 
taste, relish, disposition, propensity, principle. He speaks 
of these words as descriptive of an unknown and inexplica- 
ble cause of holy or sinful volitions. 

" T do not deny," he says, " on the contrary I readily admit that there 
is a cause of moral action in intelligent beings, frequently indicated by 
the words principle^ affections^ habits^ nature, tendency, propensity, and 
several others. In this case, however, as well as in many others, it is 
carefully to be observed, that these terms indicate a cause which to us is 
wholly unknown ; except that its existence is proved by its effects." 
" When we use these kinds of phraseology, we intend that a reason really 
exists, although undefinable and unintelligible by ourselves, why one 
mind will, either usually or uniformly, be the subject of holy volitions 

* Works^ Serm. ix. (i., 157). f Ibid., Serm. xxiv. (L, 406). 

X Ibid. , Serm. xxxii. (ii. , 13). 



WITH PEIOIi NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY. 301 

and another of sinful ones." "We mean to indicate a state of mind, 
generally existing, out of which holy volitions may, in one case, be fairly 
expected to arise, and sinful ones in another," " This state is the causey 
which I have mentioned ; a cause the existence of which must be ad- 
mitted, unless we acknowledge it to be a perfect casualty, that any voli- 
tion is sinful rather than holy." " This cause is what is so often men- 
tioned in the Scriptures under the name of the heart.'''' " I have already 
remarked, that this cause is unknown except by its effects." " It is not 
so powerful, nor so unchangeable, as to incline the mind in which it ex- 
ists, so strongly to holiness, as to prevent it absolutely from sinning, nor 
so strongly to sin, as to prevent it absolutely from acting in a holy man- 
ner." To account for sin in a holy being, we have to suppose " that a 
temptation, actually presented to the mind, is disproportioned in its 
power to the inclination of that mind towards resistance." * 

]^ow what is really meant by this unknown, mysterious 
disposition ? Regeneration is defined to be the commnnica- 
tion by God of a relish for spiritual objects, which leads to 
holy choices — such a relish as He communicated to Adam 
prior to his holy acts. Dr. Taylor considered himself justi- 
fied in interpreting these ambiguous terms in conformity 
with the expressions of Dr. D wight relative to the nature of 
sin and of agency, which have been cited ; that is, as imply- 
ing voluntary action. By volitions. Dr. Dwight undoubtedly 
means imperative acts of will. He styles the " new dispo- 
sition " in regenerated souls, " disinterestedness, love, good- 
will, benevolence." t He says that "the influence which 
God exerts on them by His Spirit is of such a nature, that 
their wills, instead of attempting any resistance to it, coin- 
cide with it readily and cheerfully, without any force or 
constraint on his part, or any opposition on their own." :j: 
But if a '' disposition " is voluntary, then Dr. Dwight must 
have held with Hopkins and Emmons that infants are vol- 
untary trangressors of law from their birth. Moreover, he 
sometimes speaks of holy love as one of the fruits or conse- 
quences of the new relish, instead of strictly identifying the 



* Works, Serm. xxvii. (i. , 456). See, also, Serm. Ixxiv. (iii., 63). 
f Ibid., Serm. Ixxxix. (iii., 280). % Ibid,, Serm. Ixxii. (iii., 40). 



302 THE SYSTEM OF DK. TAYLOE IN CONNECTION 

two. And why does he speak of this " disposition " as of 
something so mj- sterious and inexplicable, as when he says : 
" of the metaphysical nature of this cause, I am igno- 
rant "?-^ 

In interpreting a philosophical or theological writer, we 
are not at liberty to say that he nmist have meant this or 
that, because otherwise we cannot make him consistent with 
himself. Rather is it true that out of what is left obscure or 
self-contradictory in a writer, comes the spur to further in- 
vestigation and progress on the part of those who follow. 
In this case, it is reasonable to conclude that Dr. Dwight 
had not arrived at a clear view of the nature of the holy or 
sinful "disposition" at the root of special or imperative 
volitions, or brought this element into a consistent relation 
to other features of his doctrinal system. 

One of the most industrious and influential of the adver- 
saries of Dr. Taylor was Dr. Leonard Woods, Professor at 
Andover. He had expounded his opinions respecting the 
doctrine of sin in his Letters to Unitarians^ and in his con- 
troversy with Dr. Ware. He had expressed himself in ac- 
cordance with the Hopkinsian views. He rejects imputa- 
tion, and refuses unqualified assent to the statements of the 
Westminster Assembly in regard to original sin. 

"In Scripture," he said, " fhe word iiwpute, when used in its proper 
sense, certainly in relation to sin, uniformly signifies charging or reckon- 
ing to a man that which is his own attribute or act. Every attempt 
which has been made to prove that God ever imputes to man any sinful 
disposition or act which is not strictly Ms own, has failed of success. As 
it is one object of these letters to make you acquainted with the real 
opinions of the orthodox in New England, I would here say, with the ut- 
most frankness, that we are not entirely satisfied with the language used 
on this subject in the Assembly's Catechism. Though we hold that cate- 
chism, taken as a whole, in the highest estimation, we could not with a 
good conscience subscribe to every expression it contains, in relation to the 
doctrine of original sin. Hence it is common for us, when we declare 
our assent to the catechism, to do it with an express or implied restric- 

* Works, Serm. Ixxiv. (iii., 63). 



WITH PEIOE NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY. 303 

tion. We receive the catechism generally as containing- a summary of 
the principles of Christianity. We are not accountable for Adam's sin, 
but our personal sinfulness is in consequence of his sin." * 

He had defined moral agency as involving a knowledge of 
duty and a natural power of performing it. " As accounta- 
ble beings, we ha/ve a conscience and a jpo%mT of Jcnoiuing 
and jperformjing our duty. Our zeal in defence of this prin- 
ciple has been such, as to occasion no small umbrage to 
some, who are attached to every feature and every phrase- 
ology of Calvinism. On this subject there is, in fact, a well 
known difference between our views, and those of some 
modern, as well as more ancient divines, who rank high on 
the side of orthodoxy." f All sin consists in the exercise of 
a disposition contrary to what the law requires." % " Sin in 
its highest sense is sin in the heart, that is wrong affection, 
corrupt inclination," § As to the time when sin begins, Dr. 
Woods remarks : 

" I make it no part of my object in this discussion to determine pre- 
cisely the time when moral agency begins. There are difficulties in the 
way of such a determination, which I feel myself wholly unable to sur- 
mount. My position is, that as soon as men are moral agents, they are 
sinners." ''It seems to me as unreasonable and absurd to say, that 
human beings are really sinners before they are moral agents, as to say 
that birds or fishes are sinners." || 

But, notwithstanding his caution in defining the date of 
incipient moral agency, he labors to disprove the negative 
position that sin cannot begin with the beginning of the 
soul's life. There is no difficulty in supposing them to sin 
from birth, and such he plainly indicates to be his opinion. ^ 

In 1835, Dr. Woods published an essay on native de- 
pravity. Through a considerable part of this essay, he ad- 

* Letters, etc. (Boston, 1822), p. 33. We quote from the controversial 
papers of Dr. Woods in the original editions, and not in the altered form 
in which they appear in his collected works. 

f Letters, etc. (Boston, 1822), p. 95. % Ibid., p. 141. 

§ Ibid., p. 305. I Ibid., p. 183. T[ Ibid., p. 305 et passim. 



304 THE SYSTEM OF DR. TAYLOR IN CONNECTION . 

vocates the opinions whicli have just been described. He 
argues that infants may be capable of " moral emotions " of 
a sinful character from the start, inasmuch as the divine law 
is written on the heart, and therefore no instruction from 
without is requisite to render them accountable agents.^ 
He explains that he means by their having the law written 
on their hearts, that they have " moral faculties and moral 
perceptions. " f They have fi'om the first " some feeble 
degree of moral affection " — some degree of '' personal de- 
pravity." :j: " Children are in some small degree moral 
agents from the first." § 

Having pursued this line of argument, he makes one of 
the most remarkable transitions which we have ever met 
with in the course of our theological reading. He proposes 
a different hj^othesis which he at first suggests as plausible 
and entitled to consideration, but which he proceeds to de- 
fend and avow as his own belief. Stated in his own words, 
it is that the depravity of man " consists originally in a 
wrong disposition or a corritjpt nature, which is antecedent to 
any sinful emotions, and from which, as an inward source, 
all sinful emotions and actions proceed." || There is an in- 
clination, disposition, propensity, or tendency to sin, existing 
prior to all ^iwfvX feelings even, and out of that hidden foun- 
tain all such feelings, and all sinful choices and actions flow. 
This propensity to sin is itself sinful — the \QYjfons et origo 
malorum. Dr. Woods quietly ignores his doctrine as to the 
nature of moral agency, and the nature of sin, and assumes the 
existence, back of all exercises, of a constitutional, innate, in- 
herited, and propagated propensity of which sin is the object. 

Turning back now to his controversy with Ware, we find 
the same doctrine less plainly suggested, and standing side 
by side with the Hopkinsian propositions which have been 
already noticed as making up the main part of that earlier 
discussion. There are passages in which he traces sin to 

* Essay, p. 147. f Ibid., p. 150. % Ibid., p. 155. 

§ Ibid., p. 154 |] Ibid., p. 158, 



WITH PKIOB NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY. 305 

what is "original or native in our moral constitution^'' '^ "a 
uniformly operating cause or law of nature," passing from 
father to son like " the serpent's bite, the lion's fierceness," 
or " intelligence, gratitude, sympathy, or kindness," in the 
human soul, f This propensity is something distinct from 
the "natural appetites, affections, and passions," and is 
" itself sinful ; yea, it is what every one must consider as 
the very essence of sin." :j: 

In his essay, after advocating both these diverse forms of 
doctrine, in the manner stated above, he makes an attempt 
to unite them ; but it is unnecessary to trace his path in this 
unsuccessful enterprise. 

Besides the questions which have been specially noticed 
above, there is another great topic which could not escape the 
attention of the E^ew England divines. We refer to the 
permission of sin and the kindred questions which belong 
to the theodicy. This subject, as all know, was debated in 
the ancient heathen schools. It was elaborately handled by 
the scholastic writers, and by Thomas Aquinas in particu- 
lar. Differing from Scotus, who, like Anselm and Abelard, 
held that the present is the best possible system, Aquinas 
maintained, though in doubtful consistency with some of 
his own principles, § that we can conceive of the present 
system of things as amplified and extended, whence, indeed, 
a system in this sense better would result ; but within the 
present system we can conceive of no change that would 
not be an evil. Sin, in itself considered, is an evil, but, as 
related to the whole order of things in which it has a place, 
this is not the fact. Sin is not the direct means of the 
greatest good ; its proper tendencies are not good, but evil ; 
yet, indirectly, as an indispensable condition, it is the neces- 
sary means of the greatest good. It follows from the per- 

* Letters and Re;ply, p. 159. 

t Ibid., pp. 158, 162. % Ibid., pp. 334, 335. 

§ See, on the relation of this doctrine to the system of Aquinas, Rit- 
ter, Qesch. d. Christ. Phil, iv., 383. 



306 THE SYSTEM OF DE. TAYLOR IN CONNECTION 

fections of God, from liis omnipotence and benevolence, 
that it is good that evil exists. If sin did not exist when 
and where it does, the system wonld be damaged in other 
respects. Sometimes the schoolmen appealed to the princi- 
ple of variety^ and argned that virtue is set off advanta- 
geously by the contrast of moral evil, or that sin is useful 
as a test and purifier of the good, or that, without sin, forms 
of excellence — patience, for example — could never exist. 
Commonly they supported their denial of the divine author- 
ship of sin by the fallacious position which was borrowed 
from Augustine, that sin is a mere defect — is niliil. But 
their real doctrine is that sin is the necessary means of the 
greatest good. The old Protestant theology came to a like 
conclusion. It is the conviction of Calvin that because sin 
exists under the divine administration, in the system of 
which God is the author, we must suppose it preferable that 
sin should exist rather than not. It is this conviction in 
great part that leads him to deny that sin is barely permit- 
ted, and to maintain a volitive permission, and, in this sense, 
an ordination of sin on the part of God. Hence he has 
often been thought a supralapsarian, as if he held even the 
first sin to be an object of an efficient decree. But this is 
not his doctrine, as a careful study of the Consensus Gene- 
vensis, as well as of his writings generally, will demonstrate. 
He constantly falls back on the statement of Augustine, 
who is acknowledged to be sublapsarian, that God not only 
permits, but wills to permit, sin ; and he puts his whole 
theory into this sentence. Calvin's principles respecting 
the divine justice, as underlying all decrees and providen- 
tial action, clash with the supralapsarian scheme. He labors 
to repel the imputation that he holds God to be the author 
of moral evil ; yet, as we have said, he could not escape, 
as he thought, from the doctrine that it is good that evil 
exists.* This doctrine, that the existence of sin is to be 

* Not a few distinguished scholars, and among them, Gieseler, Julius 
Miiller, Neander, and Baur, have supposed Calvin to go beyond Angus- 



WITH PETOR NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY. 307 

preferred to its non-existence — that sin is the necessary 
means of the greatest good, passed into the ]^ew England 
theology. Hopkins is full of it. Bellamy advocates it in 
an elaborate treatise. He holds that this is the best of all 
possible systems ; it will be more holy and happy than if sin 
and misery had never entered it ; God could have kept all 
his creatures holy without infringing on their free agency, 
but the result would have involved a greater loss than gain.* 
Sin, " in itself and in all its natural tendencies," is " infi- 
nitely evil ; " t yet every sin is overruled " to a greater good 
on the whole." He says, and quotes Augustine to the same 
effect, that it is good that evil should exist. 

Dr. Woods in his controversy with Ware, had argued in a 
similar strain ; maintaining that the system is better than it 
would be if sin were not in it. 

When Dr. Taylor began his investigations, ISTew England 
theology asserted a doctrine of natural ability, as the condi- 
tion of responsible agency ; it rejected imputation in every 
form ; but outside of the Hopkinsian school, it associated 
with this denial a vague theory of an hereditary sinful taint, 
or a sinful propensity to sin, propagated with the race — what 
Dr. Taylor termed " physical depravity ;" — and it vindicated 

tine in connecting the first sin with divine agency. Strong expressions 
seeming to favor this view, are in the Inst, iii., xxiii., 6, 8, and in the 
Respons. ad Calum. Neb. {Works, Amst. ed., torn, viii., p. 634). But 
this last tract is the work of Beza, for which Calvin is not responsible. 
Judging by the passages in the Institutes, without reference to other ex- 
pressions of Calvin, we should unhesitatingly agree with the interpre- 
ters above named. But, in other writings, as we have said, he plants 
himself on the Augustinian formula. His doctrine is that of a volitive 
permission. See, for example, Cons. Oenev. (Niemeyer's ed.), p. 230. 
That justice lies back of all acts of the divine will, is emphatically as- 
serted. See tom. viii., p. 638. He says: " Quanquam mihi Dei volun- 
tas summa est causa, ubique tamen doceo, ubi in ejus consiliis vel operi- 
bus causa non apparet; apud eum esse absconditam, et nihil nisi juste et 
sapienter decreverit." " Clare affirmo nihil decernere sine optima causa: 
quae si hodie nobis incognita est, ultimo die patefiet." 

* Works, ii., p. 61 seq. ' f Ibid., p. 145. 



308 THE SYSTEM OF DE. TATLOE IN CONNECTION 

the introduction, or permission, of sin, bj affirming that sin 
is the necessary means of the greatest good, and that the 
system of things is better with sin than without it. - 

The aim of Dr. Taylor was to relieve Is ew England theo- 
logy of remaining difficulties on the side of human responsi- 
bility. He could not regard the prevailing theology as con- 
sistent with itself or as successful in solving the problems 
which it professed to solve.* 

The fundamental question was that of liberty and neces- 
sity. There must be, on the one hand, a firm foundation for 
the doctrine of decrees, and imiversal providential govern- 
ment, and for the exercise of resignation, submission, and 
confidence on the part of men in view of all events ; other- 
wise, the Calvinistic system is given up. There must be, on 
the other hand, a full power in men to avoid sin and perform 
their duty ; otherwise, the foundation of accountability is 
gone, and the commands and entreaties of the Bible are a 
mockery. 

The true solution of the problem, in Dr. Taylor's view, is 
in the union of the doctrine of the previous certainty of 
every act of the will — a certainty given by its antecedents, 
collectively taken — with the power of contrary choice. Free- 
dom is exemption from something ; it is exemption from the 
constraining operation of that law of cause and effect which 
brings events to pass in the material world. If the antece- 
dents of choice produce the consequent according to that 
law, without qualification, there is no liberty. Yet Dr. Tay- 
lor did not hold to the liberty of indifference or of contin- 
gence, which had been charged upon the Arminians, and 
had been denied by his predecessors. He held to a connec- 
tion between choice and its antecedents, of such a character 
as to give in every case a previous certainty that the former 
will be what it actually is. The ground, or reason of this 

* See the letter of Dr. Taylor to Dr. Beecher (Jan. 14tli, 1819), written 
before Dr. Taylor became professor, and describing what was needed in 
t'a.QQlogj.— Life of Beecher, i., 384. 



" WITH PRIOR NEW ENGLAND THEOLOaT. 309 

certainty lies in the constitution of the agent and the motives 
under which he acts ; that is to say, in the antecedents taken " 
together. The infallible connection of these with the conse- 
quent, the divine mind perceives ; though we may not dog- 
matize on the exact mode of his perception. The precise 
nature of the connection between the antecedents and conse- 
quent, Dr. Taylor did not profess to explain ; but he held 
that the same antecedents %oill uniformly be followed by the 
same consequent. In ^short, he asserted that choice is a 
phenomenon sui generis, not taking place after the analogy 
of physical events, but involving the power to the contrary. 
There is another species of causation, another category of 
causes, besides that with which we are made acquainted in 
the realm of physical phenomena. There are causes which 
do not necessitate their effect, but simply and solely give the 
certainty of it. Now, all admit that every event is pre- 
viously certain. It is a true proposition that what is to oc- 
cur to-morrow, ^oill thus occur. No matter, then, what may 
be the ground of this certainty ; as long as the events in 
question are not necessitated, there is no interference with 
moral liberty. 

Augustinians and Calvinists, except the supralapsarians, 
had admitted the power of contrary choice in the case of the 
first sin, as well as in the case of the previous moral actions 
of Adam.* They erred, according to Dr. Taylor, in assum- 
ing that this power was lost, and that the continuance of it 
is incompatible with the actual permanence of character. 

* It is plain that Aug-ustinians are cut off from the use of three very 
common arguments against Dr. Taylor. The first is that the supposition 
of a power of contrary choice admits the possibility of an event without a 
cause. But they themselves make this supposition in the case of Adam, 
The second is that a choice, in case there is a power to the contrary, can- 
not be foreseen. The third is that the supposition of such a power would 
make holiness self-originated, or the product of creaturely activity. But 
is not this inference equally necessary in the case of Adam ? 

It will be understood that we are not engaged in expounding views of 
our own, but in explaining those of Dr. Taylor. 



310 THE SYSTEM OF DR. TAYLOK IN CONNECTION 

Eather, as he believed, is this power involved in the con- 
sciousness of freedom, and recognized as real in the Scrip- 
tures, as well as bj the common sense of mankind. 

The leading principles of Dr. Taylor's system maj now be 
stated in an intelligible manner. 

1. All sin is the voluntary action of the sinner, in diso- 
bedience to a known law. The doctrine of a " physical," or 
hereditary, sin, which had lingered in the Xew England the- 
ology, though inconsistent with its principles, and was de- 
fended by Dr. "Woods and Dr. Tyler, was discarded by Dr. 
Taylor. In his doctrine of the voluntariness of all moral 
action, he agreed with the Hopkinsians. This, in truth, is 
the ancient, orthodox opinion, coming down from the days 
of Augustine. On this point we shall speak in another part 
of this Essay. 

2. Sin, however, is a permanent principle, or state of the 
will, a governing pm^pose, underlying all subordinate voli- 
tions and acts. Stated in theological language, it is the 
elective preference of the world to God, as the soul's chief 
good. It may be resolved into selfishness. An avaricious 
man makes money the object of his abiding preference. He 
acts perpetually under the influence of this active, voluntary, 
continuous, principle. He lays plans, undertakes enterprises, 
encounters hazard and toil, under its silent dictation. A like 
thing is true of an ambitious man, a voluptuary, and of 
every other sinner. Each shapes his conduct in conformity 
with the dictates of an immanent, deep-lying, yet voluntary 
or elective preference — choice — of some form of earthly 
good. In its generic form, sin is supreme love to the world, 
or the preference of the world to God. It is a single princi- 
ple, however varied its expressions, and is totally evil. It is 
the " evil treasure of the heart." It excludes moral excel- 
lence, since no man can serve two masters. 

This profound conception of the nature of character is in 
its spirit Augustinian. Dr. Taylor held that character is 
simple in its essence. It is a principle, seated in the will, 



WITH PRIOK NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY. 311 

existing and contimiing, by tlie will's consent, knowingly 
clierished, yet a fountain of action so deep that it rarely 
comes into the foreground of consciousness. Only in an 
hour of earnest reflection is a man's attention tm-ned back 
to this governing purpose of his life. 

We regard this feature of Dr. Taylor's system as an im- 
portant contribution to theological science. That " disposi- 
tion," " propensity," " inclination," which had so puzzled his 
predecessors in New England, he defined accurately, and in 
accordance with the conceptions of moral agency which they 
had themselves laid down. 

3. Though sin belongs to the individual and consists in sin- 
ning, yet the fact that every man sins from the beginning 
of responsible agency is in consequence of the sin of Adam. 
It is certain that every man will sin from the moment when 
he is capable of moral action, and will continue to be sinful, 
until he is regenerated ; and this certainty, which is abso- 
lute though it is no necessity and coexists with power to 
the opposite action, is somehow due to Adam's sin. In this 
sense, Adam was placed on trial for the whole human race.* 
On the relation of the sinfulness of men to the sin of Adam, 
Dr. Taylor agreed with the ~New England divines generally 
after the first Edwards. As to when responsible agency, as 
a matter of fact, begins. Dr. Taylor did not profess to state. 
He was not concerned to combat the doctrine of a sin from 
birth, though he did not hold it : if sin was correctly defined 
and the right doctrine as to the conditions of responsibility 
was held fast, he was satisfied. 

There is in men, according to Dr. Taylor, a bias, or ten- 
dency, — sometimes called a propensity, or disposition — to 
sin ; but this is not itself sinful ; it is the cause or occasion 
of sin. Nor is it to be conceived of as a separate desire of 
the soul, having respect to si7i as an object. Such a pro- 
pensity as this does not exist in human nature. But this 

* Mevealed Theology, p. 259. 



312 THE SYSTEM OF DE. TAYLOE IN CONNECTION 

"bias results from the condition of our propensities to natural 
good,, as related to the higher powers of the soul and to the 
circumstances in which we are placed. As a consequence of 
this tendency or bias, there is a sinful disposition, or the 
wrong governing purpose before described, which is the cause 
of all other sins, ^'^^^Zf excepted.* 

It is proper to saj that men are sinners bj nature, since, 
in all the appropriate circumstances of their being, thej sin 
from the first. If a change of circumstances, as bj trans- 
ferring them from one place on the earth to another, or 
from one set of circumstances to a more favorable one, 
would alter the fact and render them, or any of them, holy 
from the start, then their sin might properly be attributed 
to circumstances and not to nature. The certainty of their 
sin as soon as they are capable of sinning is the conse- 
quence of two factors, the constitution and condition of the 
soul (subjective), and the situation (objective). These 
together constitute natm^e in the statement, " we are sinners 
by nature." 

4. Man is the proximate efficient cause of all his volun- 
tary states and actions. The Hopkinsian theory of divine 
efficiency is rejected. No man is necessitated to choose as 
he does. There is ever a power to the contrary. A sinner 
can cease to love the world supremely and can choose God 
for his portion. He not only can if he will ; but Dr. Taylor 
uttered his protest against w^hat he considered a necessita- 
rian evasion, by affirming that " he can if he wonH."^^ He 
did not admit that the possible meanings of the question. 
Can a man choose otherwise than he does, are exhausted in 
the senseless tautology and the infinite series, into one or the 
other of which Edwards and his followers insisted on resolv- 
ing it. He did not admit that a man could properly be 
called fi*ee and responsible, merely because he wills to sin, 
provided it is assumed that his will is determined in its 

* Ibid., p. 194 



WITH PRIOR NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY. 313 

action by laws like those which govern the association of 
ideas, or by a positive exertion of divine efficiency. 

5. Inseparable from the foregoing assertion of a power to 
the contrary choice, however, is the doctrine of a moral in- 
ability on the part of the sinner to repent and convert him- 
self. He can^ but it is certain he will not. His repentance 
without the help of the Spirit is therefore just as hopeless 
as if it were completely out of his power. To expect him 
to repent by his own unaided powers is not less vain, and 
so far not less irrational, than if he were destitute of these 
powers. " Certainty with power to the contrary " is a con- 
densed statement of the truth on both sides. Thus the sin- 
ner is both responsible and dependent — perfectly responsi- 
ble, yet absolutely dependent. It is just to require him to 
repent ; it is just to punish his impenitence ; yet his only 
hope is in the merciful and gracious help of God. 

6. JN'atural ability being a real power and not an incapa- 
ble faculty, there must be something in a sinner's mind to 
which I'ight motives can appeal — some point of attachment 
for the influences of the law and the Gospel. Hence, the 
importance of the distinction between the sensibility and 
will, or of the threefold classification of mental powers, 
which Dr. Taylor was among the first to introduce. The 
writers before him had commonly folloAved the old division 
of the mind into understanding and will. By failing to 
distinguish carefully the involuntary part of our nature from 
the will proper — the elective faculty — rthey had often fallen 
into a confusing ambiguity.* It is doubtful whether the 
doctrine of divine efficiency, or of a creation of sinful as 
well as holy volitions, would have come in, if the threefold 
classification had been sharply made. Such terms as incli- 

[*Dr. Ide subjoins to one of the Sermons of Emmons this note : *•' The 
terms will, choice, and volition, are generally used by Dr. Emmons as 
they are by President Edwards, in a g-eneral sense, including the affec- 
tions, desires, etc., as well as the executive acts of the mind." Emmons's 
WoThs^ new ed., vol, ii., p. 449.] 
14 



314 THE SYSTEM OF DR. TAYLOR IN CONNECTION 

nation, disposition, propensity, are nsed now of a choice and 
now of an impulse or tendency anterior to choice. But a 
sinful man can be made to feel the force of truth, and this, 
too, without supposing him to be thereby in any degree 
holy ; for there is a neutral part of his nature which truth 
can move. Hence, too, when he is commanded in the Bible 
to consider his ways, he does not of necessity sin in doing 
so. This neutral part is the region of the sensibilities.* 

What is the particular feeling which may thus be ad- 
dressed ? According to Dr. Taylor, it is the love of happi- 
ness, or self-love. 

We are thus brought to the consideration of what has 
been deemed one of the most obnoxious features in his sys- 
tem — " the self-love theory." It has been so often misun- 
derstood that we shall give some space to explaining it. 

Dr. Taylor never held that love to God, or benevolence, 
or moral exceUence, however it may be designated, is a 
subordinate or executive volition dictated by the predomi- 
nant choice of one's own happiness. He never held that a 
man is first to choose his own highest happiness, and then 
choose the highest happiness of the universe subordinately. 

In the first place, Dr. Taylor believed, with a great com- 
pany of philosophers, from Aristotle to the present time, that 
the involuntary love or desire of personal happiness is the sub- 
jective, psychological spring of all choices. f Says Locke : 



* The existence of a neutral part of our nature, to which motives can 
appeal, is admitted by opponents of Dr. Taylor, in the case of holy Adam. 
See Dr. A. A. Hodge, Outlines of Theology, p. 237. 

f Says Augustine : " omnes istaB et alise tales vol untates suos proprios 
fines habent, qui referuntur ad finem illius voluntatis qua volumus beate 
vivere, et ad earn pervenire vitam qu« non referitur ad aliud, sed amanti 
per se ipsam sufficiat." De Trm., xi. 6. See also, De Lib. Arbit, I., xiii. 
{Conf., X., xxi.) etc. It is the scholastic maxim, " quidquid appetitur, 
appetitur sub specie boni." But the doctrine is older than Augustine. It 
is the groundwork of Aristotle's Ethical discussion. See Mg. Eth, I., vii., 
and the whole first book of this treatise. Calvin calls it the common 
doctrine of philosophers, to which he gives his assent. Inst. , II., ii., 26. 



WITH PEIOR NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY. 315 

" That which in the train of our voluntary actions determines the will 
to any change of operation, is some present uneasiness; which is, or at 
least is always accompanied with that of desire. Desire is always moved 
by evil, to fly it ; because a total freedom from pain always makes a 
necessary part of our happiness ; but every good, nay, every greater good 
does not constantly move desire, because it may not make, or may not 
be taken to make, any necessary part of our happiness ; for all that we 
desire is only to be happy." ''All other good, however great in reality 
or appearance, excites not a man's desires, who looks not on it to make 
a part of that happiness wherewith he, in his present thoughts, can sat- 
isfy himself. Happiness under this view, every one constantly pursues, 
and desires what makes any part of it : other things acknowledged to be 
good, he can look upon without desire, pass by, and be content without." 

He develops and defends tliis view at length, in his chap- 
ter on "Power," from which the preceding passages are 
quoted. President Edwards adopts the doctrine that the 
" will is as tlie greatest apparent good." " Whatever is 
perceived or apprehended bj an intelligent and voluntary 
agent, which has the nature and influence of a motive to 
volition or choice, is considered or perceived as good ; nor 
has it any tendency to engage the election of the soul in any 
further degree than it appears such." " To appear good to 
the mind as I use the phrase, is the same as to appear agree- 
able^ or seem pleasing to the mind." Explicitly and many 
times, in connection with these passages, he uses " pleasure," 
" enjoyment," " happiness," as synonyms of " good." * Even 
Bishop Butler says : 

* " In some sense, the most benevolent, generous person in the world, 
seeks his (?w)n happiness in doing good to others; because he places his 
happiness in their good." Edwards's 6^(9cZ'5 Chief End in Creation {Hi., 
38). He expounds this view more fully and emphatically in his Charity 
and its Fruits, pp. 232, 233. 

"There are two kinds of original good ; enjoyment and deliverance from 
suffering; or as the case may be, from the danger of suffering. These 
two are the only objects of desire to percipient beings ; and to intelligent 
beings, as truly as any others. When virtue itself is desired, it is desired 
only for the enjoyment it furnishes. Were there no such things in the 
universe there would be no such thing as desire ; and consequently no 
such thing as volition, or action." "A moral government is entirely 



316 THE SYSTEM OF DE. TAYLOR IN CONTsTECTION 

" Every particular affection, even the love of our neighbor, is as really 
our own affection as self-love ; and the pleasure arising from its gratifica- 
tion is as much my own pleasure, as the pleasure self-love would have 
from knowing I myself should be happy some time hence, would be my 
own pleasure. And if, because every particular affection is a man's own, 
and the pleasure arising from its gratification his own pleasure, or pleas- 
ure to himself, such particular affection must be called self-love ; accord- 
ing to this way of speaking, no creature can possibly act but merely from 
self-love ; and every action and every affection whatever is to be resolved 
up into this one principle." "All particular affections, resentment, be- 
nevolence, love of arts, equally lead to a course of action for their own 
gratification, ^. e., the gratification of ourselves; and the gratification of 
each gives delight. So far then it is manifest they have all the same re- 
spect to private interest." 

In claiming that clioice universallj proceeds from a con- 
stitutional love of happiness, Dr. Taylor considered himseK 
in agreement with writers on mental science generally, and 
he regarded the outcry against him on account of this doc- 
trine as mostly the offspring of ignorance. 

Dr. Taylor held that the object of choice is either happi- 
ness of some kind or degree, or the means of happiness. In 
the language of President Edwards, " volition itself is al- 
ways determined by that in or about the mind's view of the 
object, which causes it to ajpj)ear most agreeable." But a 
broad distinction is to be made between the direct and the 
indirect means of happiness. That which is chosen as the 
direct means of happiness to the subject of the choice, is 
chosen for its own sake. If I love knowledge and pursue it, 
in order to gain money or distinction, I do not love knowl- 
edge for its own sake ; that is, I am after the happiness de- 
rived from wealth or fame, and not after the happiness di- 
rectly imparted by knowledge and by the pursuit of it. I 
love knowledge for its own sake, when it yields me delight 
immediately and independently of any relation of it to an 
ulterior end. 



founded on motives. All motives are included in the two kinds of good, 
mentioned above. "—D wight, Serm. Ixxx. (iii., 166). 



WITH PRIOR NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY. 317 

Universal happiness, or tlie highest happiness of the nni- 
verse, is one mode of stating the object of a holy or benevo- 
lent choice. ]^ow the highest happiness of every individual 
is indissolnbly linked with the choice of this object and the 
pursuit of it as the chief end of living. That is to say, in 
the exercise of this choice there is a joy superior to that de- 
rived from anything else. From the object itself and the 
choice of it, as an immanent, voluntary preference, comes 
the highest happiness of which the soul is capable. Benevo- 
lence is the choice of the highest good of the universe, in 
preference to everything that can come into competition 
with it. But one's own highest happiness can never thus 
come into competition with it. Hather are the two — one's 
own highest happiness and that of the universe — in the 
nature of things inseparably connected. So that in the 
choice of the highest good of the whole, the choice of one's 
own highest happiness is blended. Virtuous self-love and 
virtuous benevolence denote one and the same complex state ; 
and one or the other term is employed, as the speaker has in 
view one or the other of its relations, viz., to one's own high- 
est happiness as depending on the highest happiness of the 
universe, or to the highest happiness of the universe as pro- 
ducing his own highest happiness. 

We are not vindicating Dr. Taylor's position, we are 
simply explaining it ; and without doubt a great part of the 
reproach heaped on him for his theory on this subject is due 
to the mistaken supposition that he considered benevolence, 
or love to God, a subordinate choice. '^ 

We may add that Dr. Taylor's unfortunate choice of the 
term " self-love," as an expression of his doctrine, was partly 
owing to a like use of this term in Dugald Stewart's Active 
and Moral Powers. Hopkins's doctrine of disinterested be- 

* It is needless to add that Dr. Taylor considered the moral excellence 
of virtue — or the virtuousness of benevolence — to consist in its tendency 
to promote the highest happiness of the universe. In this he agreed with 
the younger Edwards (ii., 541), and with Dwight (Serm. xcix., iii., 489). 



318 THE SYSTEM OF DE. TAYLOE IN CONNECTION 

nevolence, also, had led Dwiglit and other Anti-Hopkinsians 
to distinguish betv/een tonmterested and disinterested^ and to 
call the innocent love of happiness self-love, in distinction 
from selfishness. 

It may serve to illustrate the comparative impunity from 
theological odium which is enjoyed by writers on philosophy, 
if we call attention to the doctrine, on the topic before us, 
contained in the recent able work on moral science by Presi- 
dent Hopkins, of Williams College. This doctrine is the 
same as that of Dr. Taylor. Dr. Hopkins holds that the de- 
sire of happiness has the same relation to the other desires 
as " that of consciousness to the several specific faculties of 
cognition." 

" In this way it is that a desire of good enters into every specific form 
of desire, and that, as consciousness is the generic form of cognition, so 
the desire of good or of happiness is the generic form of all the desires."* 
''A third peculiarity of moral good is that in seeking it for ourselves 
•we necessarily promote the good of others." " By some it has been held 
that all virtue has its origin in a regard to the good of others. The true 
system is found in the coincidence of the two; and that becomes possible 
only from the peculiarity of moral good now mentioned. " f "It has al- 
ready been seen to be the characteristic of a rational being to act with 
reference to an end. But an end can be sought rationally only as there 
is in it an apprehended good.'" :{: But what is meant by a good? "As 
there is, then, no good without consciousness, which involves activity, it 
would seem that the good must be found in the activity itself, or in its 
results. 

But activity in itself cannot be a good. If it had no results, it would 
be good for nothing, and those results may be evil and wretchedness, as 
well as blessing. 

We turn then, in this search, to the results, in consciousness, of activ- 
ity. We are so constituted that any form of normal activity, physical or 
mental, produces satisfaction, enjoyment, blessedness, according to the 
faculties that act. Of these the conception is simple and indefinable, ex- 
cept by sj^nonymous terms." "We say then that in the satisfaction at- 
tached by God to the normal activity of our powers, we find a good^ an 
end that is wholly for its own sake. We say, too, that it is only in and 
from such activity that we can have the notion of any satisfaction, enjoy- 

* Love as a Law, etc., p. 95, f Ibid., p. 188. X Ibid., p. 199. 



WITH PRIOR NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY. 319 

ment, blessedness, either for ourselves or others ; and that that form and 
proportion of activity which would result in our perfect blessedness would 
be right." * 

This doctrine is identical with that of Dr. Taylor. This 
agreement does not extend to all points in the ethical theory 
of the latter ; bnt on " self-love " and its relation to benevo- 
lence and selfishness, there is a perfect agreement. 

"We may add that on the nature of moral agency, Presi- 
dent Hopkins expresses himself in entire harmony with the 
familiar principles of Dr. Taylor. The former says : 

" Man is responsible for his preferences, his choices, the acts of his will 
generally — for these and their results — and for nothing else." Responsi- 
bility cannot attach to spontaneous affections, but only to the choice of 
ap end. " There is a broad distinction between what is called, sometimes 
an immanent preference, sometimes a governing purpose, sometimes an 
ultimate intention, and those volitions which are merely executive, and 
prescribe specific acts under such a purpose." f "Character is as the 
governing preference or purpose — it consists in an original and thorough 
determination by a man of himself with reference to some end chosen by 
himself as supreme." ^ " The choice of a supreme end is generic. It is 
made once, in a sense only once. In a sense, too, it is made always, con- 
stantly repeated, since it is only under this that other choices are made. 
It is like the light of consciousness, and would naturally be the last thing 
investigated. Indeed, as consciousness is the generic form of intelligence, 
and the desire of happiness that of the desires, and love that of affec- 
tions, so the choice of a supreme end is the generic form of volition. It 
enters into all others ; they are made in its light and partake of its char- 
acter." § 

These are familiar propositions in Dr. Taylor's system. 
In pointing out this coincidence, however, we do not mean 
to detract in the slighest degree from the reputation of Dr. 
Hopkins as a fresh and independent thinker. 

T. The exposition of Dr. Taylor's conception of the ele- 
ments of moral agency renders it easy to set forth his view 
of Kegeneration. The author of regeneration is the Holy 

* Love as a Law, pp. 51, 52. See, also, pp. 131, 190, 191. 

t Ibid., p. 170. t Ibid., pp. 168, 169. § Ibid., p. 218. 



320 THE SYSTEM OF DK. TAYLOR IN CONNECTION 

Spirit. The change that takes place in the soul is due to 
His influence so exerted as to effect that change in the sense 
of rendering it infallibly certain. It is a change of charac- 
ter. It is the production of love to God as the supreme ob- 
ject of choice, in the room of love to the world. But the 
change takes place within the soul ; and it is the man him- 
self who repents and believes, and chooses God for his portion. 
Hence, it takes place in the use of his natural powers, and in 
conformity with the laws of the mind. As a psychological 
change, it can be analyzed and described. To do this was a 
part of Dr. Taylor's design in his noted Review of Spring 
on the " Means of Kegeneration." ^ He held that the at- 
tention of a sinner might be excited and directed to his duty, 
that the motives of the Gospel appeal to the instinctive de- 
sire of happiness, which underlies ah choosing, that impelled 
by this movement of a part of his nature which is neither 
holy or sinful, but simply constitutional, a sinner could sus- 
pend the choice of the world as his chief good, which forms 
the essence of sinful character, and could give his heart to 
God. Dr. Taylor thus draws out analytically the steps of a 
mental change, giving them in the order of nature rather 
than that of chronological succession. Xow a sinner is 
naturally able to make this revolution in the ruling princi- 
ple of his life. There is adequate power, and there is no ab- 
surdity in supposing that power exerted. But there is a 
moral inability, which constitutes practically an insuperable 
obstacle ; and this is overcome only by the agency of the 
Spirit who moves upon the powers of the soul, and induces, 
without coercing, them to comply with the requh-ements of 
the Gospel. 

8. Dr. Taylor's doctrine on the relation of the introduc- 
tion of sin and its continuance to the divine administration, 
accords with the general spirit of his theology. Theolo- 
gians from Calvin to Bellamy had discussed the question as 

*ChiisUan Spectator^ 1829. 



WITH PRIOR NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY. 321 

if there were only this alternative, the existence of sin or 
the prevention of it by the power of God. Holding that 
God was able to exclude sin from the system, and knowing 
that he has not done so, they proceeded to the inference 
that the system is better for having sin in it — that the ex- 
istence of sin, wherever it is found, is better, all things con- 
sidered, than its non-existence would be — that sin is the 
necessary means of the greatest good. 

In the first place. Dr. Taylor held that we are not shut up 
to the alternative just stated. There is a third way in 
which sin might have been prevented, and that is by the 
free act of the beings who commit it. To say that it was 
better for them to commit than to avoid sin, is, in Dr. Tay- 
lor's judgment, an unwarranted and false proposition. To 
say that it is better for them to be permitted to sin, as they 
do, rather than for them to be prevented from sinning by 
such a positive exertion of divine power as would be requi- 
site to effect this result, is another and quite a different 
proposition, which carries with it no dangerous conse- 
quences. It is not true, then, that sin is ever better than 
holiness in its stead would be, or that sin, all things consid- 
ered, is a good thing. But it may be true that the non-pre- 
vention of sin by the act of God is in certain cases better 
than its forcible prevention by his act. 

It is a question as old as philosophy, Why did not God 
prevent the occurrence of moral evil ? Hume revived the ar- 
gument of Epicurus : Either God can prevent it and will not, 
in which case he is not benevolent; or he will and cannot, 
in which case he is not omnipotent ; or he neither can nor will, 
in which case he is neither omnipotent nor benevolent. The 
]^ew England theologians and other Calvinistic theologians 
had assumed that he can prevent sin, and had sought to 
vindicate his benevolence by assuming that it is good that 
evil exists. Dr. Taylor took up the question in answering 
skeptical objections to the benevolence of the Creator. The 
ground that he took in reply was this, that it may be im- 
14* 



322 THE SYSTEM OF DE. TATLOE IX COXXECTION 

possible for sin to be excluded bj the act of God from the 
best possible system. He did not deem it necessary to his 
purpose, which was to ward off an objection, to affirm that 
it is thus impossible ; but he modestly said that it may he. 
He did not say that it may be that God cannot exclude sin 
from every moral system, but only fi'om the best — from 
that which will secure the largest amount of good on the 
whole. ^ He did not say that it may be impossible for sin to 
be excluded from such a system ; for he held that free 
agents might exclude it by abstaining from sin. He only 
said that for aught that can be shown, it may be inconsis- 
tent with the nature of thiugs for God, by His intervention, 
to exclude sin from that system which of all possible sys- 
tems is the most eligible for the good that it will secure. 

* [A more accurate statement would be that lie did not deem it dbso- 
lutely essential to say that God cannot, etc. That is, it is not necessary 
to say this, in order to silence the skeptic. Dr. Taylor was in the habit 
of affirming that it cannot be proved a priori that God can prevent sin 
in any moral system. Of course he must have held that it may he that 
God cannot do this. And this proposition he does maintain in his vol- 
umes on Moral Government (i., 303 seq., ii., 441 seq.). 

There has been a general impression that he held that there is no 
ground for the opinion that God can exclude sin from any moral system. 
But he distinctly stated to us, in reply to an inquiry, that this impres- 
sion is erroneous, and that his meaning was as we have given it above. 
On a close examination of the passages referred to in the published Lec- 
tures, it will be seen that he says nothing inconsistent with this. He 
maintains that it cannot be demonstrated that God can exclude sin from 
a moral system, from the nature of agency ; nor can it be proved (that is, 
demonstrated) from facts — since wherever sin is actually prevented, its 
prevention may he due to the system with which all the sin that does ex- 
ist is certainly connected. 

The possible incompatibility of the prevention of sin by the divine 
power, with the best system, is the doctrine on which he finally rested 
his refutation of the skeptical objection to the benevolence of God. That 
is to say. he usually discussed the question with reference to the actual 
state of things — the existing system. At the same time he contended 
that there can be no demonstrative proof that a moral being who can sin, 
wiU not sin, and hence no complete, decisive proof, that sin can be kept 
out of any moral system by the act of God.] 



WITH PRIOR NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY. 323 

The system would be better without sin, if this result were 
secured by the free action of the creatm^es comprising it, 
with no other alteration of its characteristics. It might not 
be so good, if the same result were reached by divine inter- 
vention. We are too little acquainted with the relations of 
divine power to free agency to declare confidently to what 
extent the exertion of such power is beneficial, when the 
universal system is taken into view. It is wiser and more 
modest to judge of what is best by what we actually see done. 

Dr. Taylor was warmly censured for abridging the divine 
power ; and this by theologians who affirmed that sin is the 
necessary means of the greatest good ; that is, that the di- 
vine Being is shut u/p to this means of attaining the ends of 
his benevolence ! 

The student of philosophy will be at once reminded of the 
theodicy of Leibnitz. This great writer advocates a scheme 
of optimism. Out of all ideal systems present to the omni- 
scient mind of God, he chooses the best possible ; that is 
the best that can be realized by him, consistently with the 
nature of things. This theory, as Leibnitz abundantly shows^ 
involves no limitation of God's power.^ Sin is not chosen 
by him as an end or a direct means to an end, but as a con- 
ditio sine qua non of the best system. Interference of God 
to prevent sin would derange the system, and thus produce 
more evil than good. He can thus interfere, but not wisely 
or benevolently ; and power in God is never dissociated from 
wisdom and benevolence. So far, there is accord between 
the system of Dr. Taylor and that of Leibnitz. But we 
have not found in Leibnitz any consideration of the hypothe- 
sis of sin being excluded from the existing system by the free 
choice of the creature^ nor any discussion of the question 



* " Adsentior principio Baelii, quod etiam meum est, omne, quod con- 
tradictionem non implicat, esse possibile." 224. He says that his theory- 
no more abridges the divine power than does the assertion that God can- 
not draw a shorter than a straight line between two points. Among nu- 
merous passages to the same effect, see 130, 158, 165, 216 (ed. Dutens). 



324: THE SYSTEM OF DE. TATLOE IN CONNECTION 

whether, supposing this hypothesis realized, the system 
would not be better for the change. And in assigning the 
reasons why divine interference to exclude sin would be un- 
wise, Leibnitz mingles two very diverse grounds. He con- 
nects the possibility of sin with the large spiritual endow- 
ments of moral creatures ; but he also speaks of sin as af- 
fording a beneficial contrast with virtue, and thus indirectly 
contributing to the beauty and harmony of the whole system. 
He compares moral evil in the system to the shading in a 
picture, which is essential to its proper effect and highest 
beauty. This is the old principle of the need of variety^ to 
which the schoolmen appealed. In passages, he even verges 
on the theory of the necessity of sin, as well as of its possi- 
bility, in consequence of the metaphysical imperfection, or 
finite constitution of the beings who fall into sin. But this 
last doctrine is at war with his prevailing view. It would 
seem, therefore, that the New Haven divines carried the 
general theoiy on which the masterly work of Leibnitz is 
constructed, a single step, but a very important step, beyond 
him. Their discussions, however, were not at all connected 
with his speculations, but were a growth upon the preceding 
New England discussions of the same high themes.* 

* A theory respecting- the permission of sin, identical with that of the 
New Haven divines, is suggested in one or two passages of Thomas 
Aquinas, but is not consistently carried out. He says : " Sicut igitur 
perfectio universitatis rerum requirit, ut non solum sint entia incorrupti- 
bilia sed etiam corruptibilia : ita perfectio universi requirit ut sint quse- 
dam qu£e bonitate deficere possint, ad quod sequitur eainterdum deficere." 
*' Ipsum autem totum quod est universitas creaturarum melius et perfec- 
tius est, si in eo sint qusedam qu^ a bono deficere possunt ; quse interdum 
deficiunt, Deo hoc non impediente." Summa, I., ii., xlviii. , A. ii. But 
Aquinas goes on immediately to argue that much good would be lost, if 
it were not for sin ; for example, that there would be no vindicative jus- 
tice and no patience, if there were no sin. He takes refuge in the doc- 
trine that sin is merely privative, like blindness in the eye, and so, being 
nothing^ has not G-od for its author ! Another passage, still more plainly, 
suggesting the main idea of the New Haven theory, has been cited from 
Aquinas's Com. in Pet. Lomh. (I., 1., Dist. 39, Q. 2, A. 2.) But this work 
we have not now at hand. 



WITH PRIOR NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY. 325 

9. Dr. Taylor's conception o£ election is conformed to his 
doctrine respecting the divine permission of sin. Regenera- 
tion is the act of God. Since the renewal of the soul is his 
work, he must have purposed beforehand to do it. He has 
determined to exert such a degree of influence upon a cer- 
tain part of the race who are sinful by their own act, and 
justly condemned, as will result with infallible certainty in 
their conversion. He is not bound to give such influence in 
equal measure to all. Rather does he establish a system of 
influence which his omniscient mind foresees to be most pro- 
ductive of holiness in his kingdom as a whole. It is not the 
act or merit of individuals that earns or procures this effec- 
tual influence, but that large expediency which has respect 
to the entire kingdom and the holiness to be produced with- 
in it. 

Election is a part of a vast and complex system of admin- 
istration, extending over a universe of intelligent beings. 
The viaterial^ so to speak, to be dealt with in this moral 
kingdom, is free agency ; just as matter \^ the material in the 
outward kingdom of nature. To what extent it is desirable 
to exert power to control the actions of free agents at any 
given time or place, only the omniscient mind, who surveys 
the whole system and knows its laws, can judge. When, 
where, and to what extent, it is desirable to exert the extra- 
ordinary influence of his Spirit to regenerate and sanctify 
souls. He alone can determine. He organizes a plan, not in 
an arbitrary way, but in order to secure the best results that 
are attainable consistently with the wise and benevolent laws' 
that underlie his whole administration. Under the opera- 
tion of this plan, the Gospel call goes to one land sooner 
than another. Antioch hears the good news at once ; other 
cities and countries must wait for ages. Not that God loves 
Antioch better than the cities of Eastern Asia ; but his ben- 
eficent plan involves this selection of Antioch. So of indi- 
viduals. The system of influence is adapted to sweep into 
the kingdom of heaven a certain number, and those alone ; 



326 THE SYSTEM OF DR. TAYLOR IN CONNECTION 

not from any partiality to tlieni, not because they deserve 
more than others, but because the system that secures their 
salvation is the wisest and most beneficent. The effectual 
call is addressed, for example, to Paul, not because he has 
claims superior to those of his associates in travel, but be- 
cause the same benevolent plan involves his conversion. His 
conversion was purposed, as the certain futurition of the 
event was secured by the plan. 

Dr. Taylor believed that his doctrines, on the points con- 
sidered under this and the preceding head, must be admitted 
in order to give their full, natural sense to the numerous pas- 
sages of Scripture in which the unwillingness of God that 
sinners should continue impenitent, and his earnest desire 
that they should turn to him and be saved, are emphatically 
expressed. Theology was embarrassed by the supposition of 
two contrary wills in the divine Being, both having respect 
to the same object, namely, the repentance of the sinner. 
There was a difficulty in reconciling the merciful declara- 
tions and invitations of the Bible, v\dth an unwillingness, 
all things considered, on the part of their Author that the 
latter should be complied with. Can he sincerely say that 
he prefers all men to abandon sin, if, on the whole, he pre- 
fers that they should not ? The old Protestant theologians 
adopted the distinction of the revealed and secret will of 
God, which had come down from the Schoolmen — the vol- 
untas signi and the voluntas heneplaciti. Calvin was too 
fair-minded an exegete not to betray his perplexity in the 
presence of some of the passages to which we have referred. 
Thus, in his comment on Matthew xxiii. 27 (the Saviours 
lament over Jerusalem), he says of the will of Jesus to gath- 
er its inhabitants to himself, that it is the will of God ex 
verbi natura — that is, the revealed will. Yet, he adds, the 
will of God is one and simple, and the representation of it 
as twofold is anthropopathic. He admits that God wills to 
gather all. Standing face to face with the " Iioould,^^ " hut 
ye would not^^ he says : " est autem inter velle Dei et ipso- 



WITH PRIOR NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY. 327 

rum nolle empliatica oppositio." The secret will of God is 
to liirn an ineffable, unfathomable mystery. On this sub- 
ject he says that nothing is better than a learned ignorance. 
Dr. Taylor considered that all this perplexity is removed, 
and full credit given to the univei'sal offers of grace and invi- 
tations of mercy, if it is only understood that while God pre- 
fers that every one should repent under the recovering infia- 
ences to which he is subject. He at the same time cannot 
wisely alter this system of influences ; and ratlier than do 
this, he prefers that the sinner should perish.* In itself con- 
sidered, and all things considered, He prefers his repentance 
to his continued and fatal impenitence ; but He prefers the 
latter — that is, He prefers to permit the latter — sooner than 
to do more than He is doing (which is all that He wisely 
can do) for his conversion. Christ most earnestly desired 
that the inhabitants of Jerusalem should receive him and 

* In harmony with Dr. Taylor's ideas on this subject is the letter (to 
Boyle) of John Howe, the great Puritan divine, on The Reconcileableness of 
God's Prescience of the Sins of Men with the Wisdom and Sincerity of His 
Counsels, Exhortations, and whatsoever Means He uses to Prevent Them. 
Howe dislikes the contrasted terms secret will and revealed will. "The truth 
is," he says, " that God doth really and complacentially will (and therefore 
doth with most unexceptionable sincerity declare himself to will) that to 
be done and enjoyed by many men, which he doth not, universally, will to 
make them do, or irresistil)ly procure that they shall enjoy." " Methinks 
it should not be difficult for us to acknowledge that God doth truly, and 
with complacency, will whatsoever is the holy, righteous matter of his 
own laws." That he does not actually procure the obedience of all, " is 
upon so much more valuable reasons, as that, not to do it was more eligi- 
ble, with the higher complacency of a determinative will." Although he 
foresees that many will not be moved by his exhortations, promises, and 
threats, but persist in sin, "he at the same time sees that they might do 
otherwise, and that if they would comply with his methods, things would 
otherwise issue with them." " For they do it not because he foreknew 
it, but he only foreknew it because they would do so. ' ' That he does 
not reclaim them from sin " proceeds not from the imperfection of his 
power, but from the concurrence of all other perfections in him." "His 
wisdom doth as much limit the exercise of his power, as his righteousness 
or his truth doth." See, also, Howe on The Redeemer'' s Tears Wept over 
Lost Souls, where are sentiments to the same effect. 



328 THE SYSTEM OF DE. TAYLOK IN CONNECTION 

be saved. " Row often would I . . . . but ye would not." 
But he preferred to leave them to that dreadful lot which 
they were bringing on themselves, rather than to bring a dif- 
ferent kind, or an increased amount of influence to recover 
them. There is no contradiction in his will, for the objects 
of choice in the two cases are different.^ 

Under the ^ew Haven theory, there is room not only for 
the hardening of heart under a law of character, which is 
certain in its operation, but also for the judicial withdrawal 
of the influences of grace, on which all hope depends. 

How earnestly Dr. Taylor upheld the doctrine of Special 
Grace, and of sovereignty in the bestowal of it, may be 
learned from the following extracts fi^om his Review of 
Spring on " The Means of Regeneration " : — 

"According' to the principle which we have advanced, there is no 
ground of certainty that the renewing grace, or the grace which secures 
the performance, will attend any call to duty, addressed to any individual 
sinner. Here, as we shall now attempt to show, lies the practical power 
of the doctrine of dependence, viz. , in the fearful uncertainty, which it 
imparts to the great question of the sinner's regeneration." This doc- 
trine "was taught with great plainness, and pressed in all its pungency, 
and all its mysteriousness, upon the wondering Nicodemus by the Saviour 
himself." " Why is the high and uncontrollable sovereignty of God in 
the gifts of his grace, so clearly announced and so formally and trium- 

* It would seem to be felt by many opponents of Dr. Taylor that the 
very supposition of a successful withstanding of the Spirit of God by the 
human will cannot be entertained without impiety. But they must read 
their New Testaments with little attention, or they would not argue in 
this strain. " Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost," says Peter (Acts viii. 
51) ; where the word for resist {avrnr'nTrw) in its primary import signifies 
" to fall upon,"— as an enemy. There is an exertion of^the Spirit, a real 
exertion, which yet does not prevail over the will. Only a perfectly so- 
phistical exegesis can shut this fact out of the New Testament. Granted, 
that in the case of the elect, grace is effectual, unresisted — is of a kind 
and degree to secure the f uturition of the event. This does not affect the 
truth stated before. " Grieve not the Spirit," writes Paul (Eph. iv. 30) ; 
representing the Spirit in the light of a loving friend, who is troubled or 
hurt by neglect and opposition. How different is this conception of the 
Spirit's influence from that which makes it a mere exertion of power ! 



WITH PRIOR NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY. 329 

phantly defended ag'ainst the murmurings of the ungodly? " " Have we 
no evidence that this is an unwelcome truth, and unwelcome because it 
is terrible, and terrible because it shows man's eternal destiny to depend 
on the unknown counsels of an offended God ? " " What is better fitted 
to confirm this confidence " — the delusive confidence of the sinner that 
he shall escape future misery — "than the assurance, or even a high 
probability, that the grace of God is, and ever will be, ready to renew 
the heart." " They believe in their dependence on God ; but they also 
believe that the necessary grace is, and will be, ready for their use, when 
they shall be ready to use it. This is the grand opiate of the adversary 
by which he holds enthralled multitudes, under the light of salvation, in 
their guilty sleep of moral death." But "his salvation, by his own per- 
verseness, is forfeited into the hands of a sovereign and offended God. 
Point then the thoughtless man to God's high counsels, and show him 
that God will save or destroy, ' as seemeth good in his sight.'" "Ac- 
cording to the principles which we have advanced, the gift of renewing 
grace cannot be inferred from the nature, tendency, or relations of any 
prior acts of the sinner. It cannot be inferred from any divine promise, 
but is thrown into fearful uncertainty by the divine threatenings." 
"Whether, therefore, this blessing be given or withheld in respect to in- 
dividual sinners, is an inquiry which, according to the views we have 
maintained in the previous discussion, as well as according to the scrip- 
tural doctrine of dependence, must be left with the sovereignty of God, 
whose secret counsels no eye can penetrate. " * 

'Now, we ask any candid person wlio knows enough about 
the subject to form, an intelligent judgment, if the system 
which we have sketched above, is Pelagian. The Pelagian 
system is a tolerably coherent one, and is well understood. 
Underlying Pelagianism, is the assumption that an act of 
sin has little or no tendency to self -perpetuation. It may 
be repeated, or may not, but it does not, of course, result in 
a character — a permanently sinful state of the will. In 
fact, there is no character in the sense of a single, central, 
all-governing principle, at the root of special virtues or 
special forms of sin. Hence there is rather a graduation 
from the worst to the best men, than a radical difference 
between the good and evil. Consistently with this funda- 
mental assumption is the doctrine that Adam's sin did not 

* Cliristian Spectator, 1829, pp. 706, 708, 710. 



330 THE SYSTEM OF DE. TAYLOR IN CONNECTION 

affect his posterity, except in the way of example — an ex- 
ample which is not miiversally followed. There have been 
sinless men, many of w^hom can be named. The world grew 
worse, but this was owing to the multiplying of evil exam- 
ples and the power of education. But the virtues of the 
heathen are such as to entitle them to reward. The Re- 
vealed Law was given as a moral influence to deter men 
from committing sin ; the Gospel was added as an additional 
influence tending to the same end. Men need grace, but 
grace in the view of the Pelagian leaders, principally, if not 
exclusively, consists in the giving of truth, precepts, admoni- 
tions, and the like ; not in an inward operation of the 
Spirit. Free-will itself, with the other native powers of the 
mind, is reckoned under the term grace. There are two 
states of blessedness, corresponding to the lower and higher 
type of salvable character, the vita eterna and regmim coelo- 
ruin. This is in keeping w^ith the legal spirit and quantita- 
tive estimate of excellence, that characterize Pelagianism."^ 



* For tlie correctness of this statement of the tenets of the Pelagians, 
we only need refer to the ordinary histories of doctrine. We here call 
special attention to two particulars, viz., the Pelagian conception of grace^ 
which excludes the operation of the Spirit^ and the '' atomical mew'''' of 
character. 1. After Pelagius was acquitted at Diospolis, Augustine at- 
tached no blame to the bishops, but considered that they had been misled 
by ambiguities ; and he expressly says that Pelagius really resolved grace 
into law and teaching. ' ' Quid manif estius, nihil aliud eum dicere gratiam, 
qua Deus in nobis operatur velle quod bonum est, quara legem atque doc- 
trinam." De Grat. Christ, x. See, also, De Gest. Pel. x., De Hcer., 88. 
Whether Augustine was altogether right in his interpretation of Pelagius, 
is for the present purpose immaterial. What was condemned as Pelagian- 
ism was the doctrine thus ascribed to him. 2. It is the well-known phil- 
osophy of Pelagianism that an act of sin does not result in a sinful charac- 
ter. The act passes by and leaves the will in equilihrio. We are aware 
of what Pelagius says {Ad. Demetriad.., 8) respecting the " longa consue- 
tude vitiorum " and its corrupting influence. Medner infers that he 
must have differed from Coelestius and Julian on this point, and have 
been less a Pelagian than they. But " the custom" of sinning is a vague 
conception in Pelagius. " Pelagius and Julian," says Julius Miiller 
{Lehre. •y., d. Sllnde,u., 50), "content themselves here with a notion 



WITH PRIOR NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY. 331 

'Now, there is not one of these essential tenets of the 
Pelagians which Dr. Taylor does not deny. Yital points of 
their system, as, for example, their superficial notion of 
character and of what is morally excellent and acceptable to 
God, Dr. Taylor was most earnest in opposing. He spared 
no effort to inculcate a profounder view of the essence of 
character and to show that so-called virtuous acts or virtuous 
habits, when they do not emanate from love to God, are 
destitute of that quality of holiness which alone meets with 
his approbation. That true excellence consists in a conge- 
ries of virtues is a proposition which he continually com- 
bated. 

In fact, the great aim of Dr. Taylor was to answer Pela- 
gian objections and to maintain the substantial, practical 
features of Calvinism against them. This he supposed him- 
self able to do by showing that the power of contrary choice 
which they claimed as an inherent attribute of the will, and 
a condition of moral responsibility, involves no such conclu- 
sions as they drew from it. So far from this, Dr. Taylor in- 
sisted that one act of sin carries with it, uniformly and infalli- 
bly, an established principle of sin, which nothing but the 
inward operation of the Spirit of God will ever overcome. 
The Pelagians, with their power to the contrary, had seized 
on a half-truth, and thus fallen into gross error. Men may 
hold that the power to the contrary involves the Pelagian 



which, had they gone deeper into its nature and scope, would have suf- 
ficed to disturb their confidence in their doctrine of freedom ; but which, 
as it was taken up by* them umoillingly and in an external and superficial 
way^ was necessarily without any deep influence on their system." 
" The single act," adds Miiller, " is thought of as completely isolated. 
There is no insight into the law, according to which it must bring forth 
a moral state," etc. Exactly what Pelagius believed, it may not be 
easy, on all points, to determine. The question is, what was the under- 
standing of his doctrine— what was the Pelagianism which was con- 
demned. That the Gospel only renders less difficult what was not only 
possible but practicable to be accomplished by human agency without it, 
was unquestionably the teaching of the Pelagian leaders. 



332 THE SYSTEM OF DE. TAYLOR IN CONNECTION 

notion of the mutableness of character ; but Dr. Taylor does 
not admit this, and they have no moral right to charge upon 
him an inference of their own which he spent half of his 
life in confuting. 

Pelagianism is a superficial philosophy, taking no earnest 
account of the self -propagating power of sin ; acceptable 
sometimes to acute, but never to deep-thinking minds ; making 
so little of the need of redemption as to threaten the founda- 
tions of the Gospel system. Such was not the spirit of the 
'New Haven theology. 

Having stated in general Dr. Hodge's unfair representa- 
tion of Dr. Taylor's theology, we specify some particulars. 

1. Dr. Hodge gives great prominence to Dr. Taylor's doc- 
trine of Natural Ability, but scarcely mentions his doctrine 
of Moral Inability. An ordinary reader of his Article 
would hardly be aware that Dr. Taylor held this last doc- 
trine. That it had any importance in his system, such read- 
ers would never dream. In the July number of the Prince- 
ton Beview^^ Dr. Hodge expressly ascribes to Dr. Taylor 
the doctrine that " absolute certainty is inconsistent with 
free agency " — a proposition which Dr. Taylor constantly 
denied and incessantly opposed. 

In the Article under consideration. Dr. Hodge expatiates 
(pp. 62, 63, 64) on Dr. Taylor's "Pelagian doctrine" of 
plenary ability, involving the power of contrary choice, and 
then dwells on four corollaries from this doctrine, which he 
also attributes to Dr. Taylor. Under the second of these 
corollaries, he does admit that Dr. Taylor held to moral in- 
ability; but he alludes to this doctrine 'as if it were of 
slight consequence in weighing the orthodoxy of Dr. Tay- 
lor's system. " It is true," he says, " that Dr. Taylor ad- 
mits that men are depraved by nature ; that is, that such is 
their nature that they will certainly sin. But this was 



* Pp. 517, 518. As the incorrect statements on these pages are repeated 
in the later Article, we have no occasion to say more respecting- them. 



WITH PKIOE NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY. 333 

admitted by Pelagius, except in a case here and there 
among milKons." ^ We do not know what authority there 
is for this last statement. But we do know that Pelagius did 
not hold the doctrine of moral inability as President Ed- 
wards, and Dr. Taylor with him, held it. Dr. Hodge 
speaks of Pelagius and Dr. Taylor as separated on this 
great point by " a shadowy difference." f He can prove the 
same thing just as well and no better of President Edwards. 
Dr. Hodge says, if that Christians, and especially Calvinists, 
have maintained that " God commands what man cannot 
perform ; " " that man by the fall lost all ability of will to 
anything spiritually good ; " and he contrasts these proposi- 
tions with Dr. Taylor's denial of them. But President Ed- 
wards denies these same propositions, in what he considers 
the proper sense of their terms, and holds that men are en- 
dowed " with the utmost liberty that can be desired, or that 
can possibly exist or be conceived of." It is President Ed- 
wards's doctrine of moral inability that saves his essential 
Calvinism ; and on this subject Dr. Taylor agrees with him. 
They both held that the sinner's unwillingness to repent is 
the sole obstacle in the way of his salvation, and is such an 
obstacle that nothing but regenerating grace will ever remove 
it. President Edwards rested man's need of grace on this 
certainty alone, and so did Dr. Taylor. 

2. Dr. Taylor did not hold, as Dr. Hodge represents that 
he did, that God " cannot prevent sin, or the present amount 
of sin, in a moral system." He taught, as we have ex- 
plained above, that it may be (for aught that can be shown 
to the contrary) that God cannot prevent sin in the best 
moral system. He said in the Concio ad Clerum that it 
cannot he proved — that is, proved a priori, or demonstrated 
— that God can prevent sin in a moral system. This was 
the sense in which he used the term proved, as he himself 
explained. He held that it can be proved by probable reas- 

* Princeton Review, Jan., 1868, p. 67. f Ibid., p. 64. % Ibid., p. 64. 



334 THE SYSTEM OF DE. TAYLOK IN CONNECTION 

Oiling that God can prevent sin in a moral system. Hence 
the unqualified proposition that " God cannot effectually 
control free agents, without destroying their nature," is in- 
correctly ascribed to the ISTew Haven divines by Dr. 
Hodge.* 

3. Dr. Hodge reiterates the utterly erroneous statement 
that, according to Dr. Taylor, God " brings all the influence 
that he can to secure the conversion of every man." f He 
represents him as holding that " a free agent can, and multi- 
tudes do, effectually resist the utmost efforts of the Spirit 
of God to secure their salvation" (p. 71); "that God does 
all he can to convert every man, and elects those whom he 
succeeds in inducing to repent " (p. 74) ; that " He does all 
he can to convert every sinner, consistent with his moral 
agency (p. 76)." Dr. Taylor did not hold the doctrine that 
is here attributed to him. Dr. Taylor says, illustrating the 
feeling and action of God, by reference to a human father : 
" it by no means follows that he will, or that he ought to, 
do all that he can, and all that may be necessary, to secure 
the return of the prodigal." J Dr. Hodge himself, in 
another place, presents Dr. Taylor's real view in a quotation 
from the Sj)ectator, wdiere it is said of God that he " brings 
all those kinds, and all that degree of moral influence in 
favor of it \i. e., the sinner's compliance with the Gospel in- 
vitation], which a system of measures best arranged for the 
success of grace in a world of rebellion allows." Can Dr. 
Hodge fail to see the difference between this proposition 
and the one he imputes to Dr. Taylor ? Among the various 
conjectural reasons which the latter gives why God sancti- 
fies a part and not the whole, one is that those elected " may 
be more useful than others for promoting his designs." § 
" The general interest, the public good, may forbid that he 
should do any more than he does for the lost sinner." || Dr. 



71. t p. 71. X Revealed Theology, p. 378. 

§ Ibid , p. 417. ' 1 Ibid., p. 418. 



WITH PRIOR NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY. 335 

Taylor states his doctrine in these words : " God does all 
that he can loisely to bring every sinner to repentance." * 
Would Dr. Hodge deny this ? Would he say that God does 
not do all he can wisely to bring every man to repentance ? 

Dr. Hodge (on p. 73) endeavors to fasten on the New 
Haven theology the doctrine of scientia media, as it was 
held by Jesuit theologians. "This distinction," he says, 
" was introduced with the conscious and avowed intention of 
getting rid of the Augustinian doctrine, held by the Jansen- 
ists, of predestination and sovereign election." Molina, who 
first gave notoriety to this distinction, died in 1600, when 
Jansenius was only fifteen years old ; and his avowed motive 
in introducing it was to reeoncile the Augustinian and semi- 
Pelagian view. But this is unimportant ; it is true that the 
Molinist theory was warmly debated by the Jansenists and 
their opponents. Dr. Hodge proceeds to define the scientia 
media, in its bearing on election : '' God foresees who will, 
and who will not, submit to the plan of salvation. Those 
whom he foresees will submit, he elects to eternal life ; those 
whom he foresees will not submit, he predestinates to eternal 
death. The New Haven divines adopt the same distinction, 
and apply it to the same purpose." Dr. Hodge then quotes 
a paragraph from Dr. Fitch, in the Christian Sjpectator, 1831, 
in which it is said, " it was to he believers, and not as be- 
lievers, that he chose them under the guidance of his {scien- 
tia media) foreknowledge." 

Dr. Hodge has mistaken Dr. Fitch's position. Dr. Fitch 
introduces the term scientia onedia in replying f to the ob- 
jection of Dr. Fisk, that the Calvinistic doctrine makes God 
form his decrees blindl}^ — without knowledge — by an imin- 
telligent act of will. Dr. Fitch replies that God consults 
his omniscience in forming his decrees. He knows what 
free agents, under given circumstances, will voluntarily do. 



* Bevealed Theology^ p. 878. See, also, infra^ p. 327. 
f Christian Spectator^ 1831, p. 609. 



336 THE SYSTEM OF DE. TAYLOR IN CONNECTION 

But Dr. Fitch holds that in the case of the elect, it is God 
who by his grace produces their repentance and faith, and 
that he purposed to do this. There is not only foresight on 
his part, but a distinct purpose to secure the result, and a 
providing of means to this end. And there is an inherent 
efficacy in the means to secure the end. He does not fore- 
see the end independently of the means ; yet both end and 
means are predetermined. 

This is a different theory from that of the Molinists and 
the Arminians. According to both, " sufficient grace " is 
given to all, and it is called "efficacious" or effectual, in the 
cases where it is complied with. Tliat is, it is called effica- 
cious, only ex eventu. God decrees that all who he foresees 
will believe shall be saved ; but their faith results from no 
special measures on his part. It is the object of a purjpose, 
in no proper sense of the term. God dispenses his gifts of 
grace nniversally, and lets the result be what it will ; 
although, of course, being omniscient, he foresees what it 
will be. The Socinians even denied this foresight ; and 
some of the Arminians came near doing the same. Suarez 
and the other Jesuit theologians explicitly taught that the 
difference between gratia sufficiens and gratia efficax is not 
in primo actu, or in God, but in secundo actu, or the deport- 
ment of the will. "^ 

* Molina says : ' ' Deus sine ulla intermissione ad ostium cordis nostri 
stat, paratus semper conatus nostros adjuvare, desideransque ingressum,' 
Of the will in relation to " sufHcient grace," his doctrine is : — " Si con 
sentiat et co5peretur ut potest, efficiat illud eflEicax ; si vero non consentiat 
neque cooperetur — reddat illud inefScax." Gieseler, K. G-. iii. 2, 614 n 

The Molinists held, moreover, that God saves or condemns men, accord 
ing as he foresees that under any and all circumstances they will be holy, 
or under any and all circumstances resist his grace. 

"Gratia efficax vocatur ex eventu." Conf. Bern., 17, 5. "Sufficiens 
vocatio, quando per cooperationem liberi arbitrii sortitur suum effectum, 
vocatur efficax." Liraborch, 4, 12, 8. This whole distinction between 
" sufficient " grace and ''efficacious" grace, which belongs alike to the 
Arminians and the Congruists, has no more place in the New Haven sys- 
tem than in that of Calvinists generally. 



WITH PRIOE NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY. 337 

The Kew Haven doctrine was essentially dissimilar from 
this. The ISTew Haven divines did not teach that grace is 
given in equal measure to all individuals ; nor did they teach 
that the number o£ the elect is made up of those who were 
foreseen to be most pliable under recovering influences, and 
vice versa. It is true that they only are saved who it was 
foreseen would repent and believe. But their repentance 
and faith are not only foreseen ; they result from a peculiar, 
sovereign distribution of the gifts of grace.* What Dr. Fitch 
teaches in the Article referred to may be seen from such 
declarations as the following : — " It is true that God's fore- 
knowledge of what would be the results of his present works 
of grace, preceded in the order of nature the purpose to pur- 
sue those works, and presented the grounds of that purpose " 
(p. 622) ; but " why do given sinners repent ? Is there no 
groimd of certainty, but what lies in their powers of agency ? " 
" Does God use no influences and means to induce sinners to 
come to him with voluntary submission, and accept of life ? 

* The sdentia media^ in some proper sense of the term, everybody who 
believes that God has a plan of providential government, must admit. 
The 'principle is involved in 1 Sara, xxiii. 9-12, Matt. xi. 22, 23. Tyre 
and Sidon would have repented, had their situation in one respect been 
like that of Bethsaida and Chorazin. These passages, says Dr. A. A, 
Hodge, are not cases of sdentia media, they ' ' simply teach that God, 
knowing all causes, free and necessary, knows how they would act under 
any proposed condition " {Outlines of Theology, p. 114). What is this but 
sdentia media f In fact, Fonseca, who devised the term sdentia media, 
divides it into two parts, the second of which {sdentia pure conditionata) 
is the knowledge of acts which would have come to pass under certain 
conditions never actually realized. And he refers to this very case of 
Tyre and Sidon. (Hamilton's Supplementary Notes on Reid, p. 982.) 
This form of knowledge some may think best to include in the knowledge 
of simple intelligence ; but this is an objection not to the thing, but to the 
name. Dr. A. A. Hodge resolves the foreordination of sin into sdentia 
media. " God knowing certainly that the man in question would in the 
given circumstances so act, did place that very man in precisely those 
circumstances that he should so act " {Outlines, etc., p. 170). This agrees 
entirely with the remark respecting the occurrence of sin, with which Dr. 
Fitch first connects the term sdentia media. {Spectator^ 1831, p. 609.) 
15 



338 THE SYSTEM OF DE. TAYLOE IN CONNECTION 

Are these influences brought to bear alike on all nations and 
on all individuals ? " * Election always includes in it " the 
jpurpose of God which secures the repentance and faith of 
those particular persons who are saved and adopted." f 

That Dr. Fitch uses the phrase scientia media — a phrase 
quite unexceptionable in reference to the foreordination of 
sinful voluntary actions — is of no consequence. The ques- 
tion is whether he resrarded the faith of the believer as due 
to an efficacy residing in the means which God employs for 
his conversion. He says : — 

" Dr. Fisk overlooks the distinction made by Calvinists, between an 
election to holiness^ and an election to salvation. The latter all admit to 
be conditional — to have a ' reference to character.' God has elected none 
to be saved, except on the condition that they voluntarily embrace the 
Grospel, and persevere unto the end. But the question is, How comes 
any man to comply with this condition — to have the character in ques- 
tion? Does not God secure that compliance; does he not elect the indi- 
viduals, who shall thus voluntarily obey and persevere ? Calvinists af- 
firm that he does. The election unto holiness is the turning-point of 
their system. They never speak of an election unto salvation^ except as 
founded upon it — as presupposing God's purpose to secure the condition 
of salvation, in the hearts of the elect." 

Dr. Fitch does not, indeed, teach that grace is, properly 
speaking, irresistible ; neither does Dr. Hodge. But both 
agree that it is unresisted and effectual. 

Dr. Taylor illustrates his idea of election as follows : — 
" Suppose a father can wisely do more to secure the repent- 
ance of one child than he can wisely do to secure the repent- 
ance of another ; suppose that a higher influence in one case 
would be safe and even salutary in respect to the conduct of 
his other children, while in the other case it would in this 
respect prove fatal ; suppose him for these reasons to use the 
higher influence with a design to secm-e the obedience of one 
child, and to use it vtdth success ; — ^is not this election — is not 
this making one to differ from another — is not this ha/ding 

* Spectator, p. 631. f Ibid., p. 619. 



WITH PEIOE NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY. 339 

mercy on whom he will have mercy — and doing more for 
one than for another, and with good reason too ? " Dr. Tay- 
lor declares that the probability of success to be held out 
to sinners, as an encouragement to present effort and ac- 
tion, " must be lowered down to what the Apostle calls a 
peradventure that God will give them repentance; and 
that delay and procrastination are ever lessening this prob- 
ability." * 

In short, the IN'ew Haven theologians taught that God does 
all the good he wisely can ; he produces among his fallen 
creatures the largest amount of holiness in the aggregate 
which the nature of things, or the essential requisites of the 
best system, admit of ; they did not teach that the sole or 
the principal of the considerations regulating the distribu- 
tion of his recovering influences among the individuals of 
the race, is the greater or less degree of obstinacy in sin 
which they are severally foreseen or perceived to have. 

Among Calvinists no one is more emphatic in asserting 
that God has good and wise reasons for all his decrees, than 
Calvin himself. He is a sovereign ; he takes counsel with 
no one, and reveals the reasons of his determinations and ac- 
tions no further than he deems best. But there are the best 
reasons, and one day they will be made known. Dr. Taylor 
and his associates believed that the reasons why he does not 
choose to recover all from sin, may lie not in any limitation 
of his benevolence, or, properly speaking, of his power, but 
in limitations in the nature of things — in the essential 
characteristics of the best system. Omnipotence lays cer- 
tain restraints upon itself in governing a universe of free 
agents ; just as God, to quote the pithy expression of Lyman 
Beecher, does not govern the stars by the ten command- 
ments. 

The ]^ew Haven doctrine, then, did recognize an elec- 

* Reply to Dr. Tyler's Examination^ p. 18. Revealed Theology, p. 434. 
See, also, infra, p. 334. 



34:0 THE SYSTEM OF DE. TAYLOR IN COimECTION 

tion and a sovereignty in election, wliich are not found in 
the Arminian system. There is no claim, of any sort, on the 
part of an individual who is elected ; but his salvation — his 
repentance not less than the blessings that follow it — is the 
certain consequence of the operation of a plan which has in 
view the highest attainable good ; and in effecting his re- 
pentance, the determining influence is with God, so that all 
the glory of the change is due to him. 

At the same time, the New Haven doctrine differed from 
the old Calvinism in explicitly admitting that the universal 
recovery of sinners by grace, may be inconsistent with that 
system in which free agency is to play so essential a part, 
and which God has fi-eely chosen as being the best. 

On the whole it seems fair to describe the J^ew Haven 
type of doctrine as moderate Calvinism.* 

4. Dr. Hodge gives a very erroneous view of Dr. Taylor's 
doctrine of regeneration. Proposing to give the doctrine of 
" the Kew Haven divines," the former says : " Regeneration 
is defined to be not an act of God, but an act of the sinner 
himself." What reader of this sentence would suppose that 
Dr. Taylor, when treating, in his published Lectures, of this 
very subject, uses the following language : " The Spirit of 
God is the author of the change in RegeTieration. I cannot 
suppose it necessary to dwell on this fact in opposition to 
Pelagian error, or the proud self-sufficiency of the human 
heart. The fact of divine influence in the production of 
holiness in the heart of man, meets us, as it were, on almost 



* If the New Haven theology is so objectionable, what is to be thought 
of the theology of Baxter ? He holds that sufficient grace is given to all 
" to enable them to seek salvation, and God will not forsake them until 
they forsake him; " that "' it is the wise design of the Redeemer not to 
give to men the same degrees of aid ; but to vary the degree, sometimes 
according to the preparation and receptivity of men, and sometimes only 
according to his good pleasure ; " and that the divine working is not such 
as "takes away the simultaneous power to the contrary (simultatem po- 
tentise ad contrarium." Meth. Theol^ P. iii., c. 25, Cath. Theol.^ B. ii., 
p. 133. 



WITH PRIOR NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY. 841 

every page o£ the sacred record ; " and Dr. Taylor adds, 
quoting from the Synod of Dort : " This divine grace of re- 
generation does not act upon men like stocks and trees, nor 
take away the properties of the will, or violently compel it 
while unwilling ; but it spiritually vivifies, heals, corrects, 
and sweetly, and at the same time, powerfully inclines it : " 
and Dr. Taylor says still further, that " this influence of the 
Spirit is distinct from the natural influence of the truth ; and 
though not miraculous, is supernatural." He says, indeed, 
that " the change in regeneration is the sinner's own act ; " 
because " the thing produced by the power of God is their 
own act — the act of putting on the new man." ^ He cites, 
with approbation, the sentence of President Edwards respect- 
ing this change : " God produces all, and we act all. For 
that is what he produces, viz., our oion actsP f 

Why not say that President Edwards believes that regen- 
eration " is not an act of God," because he says that " we act 
all ? " 

5. Dr. Hodge, in seeking to identify Dr. Taylor's doctrine 
on the ofiice of grace in the recovery of the sinner, with that 
of Pelagius, has made a very misleading statement of the 
latter's position. Having quoted from Dr. Taylor the re- 
mark that " the error of Pelagius is, not that he attained 
man's ability without grace, but that man does actually obey 
God without grace," Dr. Hodge observes : ^' It is a mistake 
to say that' Pelagius held that ' men do actually obey God 
without grace,' so that this shadowy difference between him 
and Dr. Taylor on this point vanishes." Does not Dr. 
Hodge know that Pelagius and Dr. Taylor use the term 
" grace " in a very different signification ? That Dr. Taylor 
means here by " grace " the inward, supernatural operation 
of the Holy Spirit ? that in this sense Pelagius did hold that 
men sometimes " actually obey God without grace ? " Pe- 



* Revealed Theology^ pp. 390, 391. 
f Outlines of llieology, pp. 290, 361. 



342 THE SYSTEM OF DE. TAYLOR IN CONNECTION 

lagius, as we have explained before, called the law of the 
Old Testament, providential dispensations, the precepts of 
Christ and various other things, by the name " grace," whilst 
he made little or nothing of the inward operation of the 
Divine Spirit.^ 

Let us now sum up Dr. Hodge's charges against Dr. Tay- 
lor's system. His generic charge is that plenary ability, or 
the power of contrary choice, is made to. belong inseparably 
to the will ; but he keeps out of sight, as far as practical im- 
pression is concerned. Dr. Taylor's associated doctrine of 
moral inability. In the formula, " certainty with power to 
the contrary " — " certainty " is uttered soUo voce. 

Of the heretical corollaries charged on the system, the first 
is " that all sin consists in the voluntary transgression of 
known law." That all sin is voluntary, is the common asser- 
tion of orthodox theology. It is the doctrine of Augustine, 
as well as of Dr. Taylor.f It is the doctrine of Dr. Hodge 

* Dr. A. A. Hodge defines the Pelagian Conception of grace, as exclud- 
ing the internal operation of the Spirit. {Outlines of Theology^ p. 335.) 
Pelagians hold, he says, ' ' That the Holy Spirit produces no internal 
change in the heart of the subject, except as he is the author of the 
Scriptures, and as the Scriptures present moral truths and motives, which 
of their own nature exert a moral influence upon the soul." 

f The doctrine of Augustine on the nature of sin is frequently miscon- 
ceived. This is chiefly owing to the fact that he uses the term voluntas 
in so various meanings, and often does this in the same paragraph. His 
precise conception of the concupiscentia with which the descendants of 
Adam are born, must be ascertained, 1. Concupiscence, which is inordi- 
nate desire for the inferior good — in particular, fleshly desire — belongs to 
aU men from birth, and gives rise to a conflict in the soul and to a disor- 
dered condition not belonging to man's original nature. 2. In the case 
of the baptized and regenerated, concupiscence remains as a principle, 
but brings guilt only so far as its impulses are obeyed. ' ' Quamdiu ergo 
manet lex concupiscentialiter in membris, manente ipsa reatus ejus solvi- 
tur ; sed ei solvitur, qui sacramentum regenerationis accepit renovarique 
jam coepit." {Be Pec. Mer. et Bemis.^ II., xxviii.) "Nam ipsa quidem 
concupiscentia jam non est peccatum in regeneratis, quando illi ad illici- 
ta opera non consentitur." {De Nwpt. et Cone, I., xiii.) The same thing 
is said in a multitude of other passages. 3. That native concupiscentia 
is sin, is not only implied in the passages above, but is explicitly asserted 



WITH PRIOR NEAV ENGLAND THEOLOGY. 343 

himself."^ And Dr. Taylor does not mean that sin is in 

in many places. It ia at once sin and the punishment of sin. " Sed per- 
tinet originale peccatum ad hoc genus tertium, ubi sic peccatum est, ut 
ipsum sit et poena peccati." {Op. Imp. Cont. Jul.^ I., xivii.) Dr. Emer- 
son, in a note to his translation of Wiggers on Augustinism and Pelagian- 
ism, supposes Augustine to teach that concupiscence is not ' ' really sin ; " 
but he inadvertently applies what Augustine says of the regenerate or bap- 
tized, to all. The very passage vrhich Dr. Emerson quotes (p. 128) in 
proof of his position, speaks of the guilt of concupiscence as pardoned in 
baptism — " cujus jam reatus lavacro regenerationis absumtus est. " ( Cont. 
Duas Epistt. Pel, I., xiii.) 

4. But Augustine regarded concupiscence as voluntary. In the long 
passage of the Opus Imp. G. Jul. (I., xliv. seq.), where he discusses the 
question whether native sin is in the will, and in the Retractationes (I., 
cxv. ) where he explains the previous statement which he had made in the 
treatise De libera Arbitrio, on this subject, he goes no further than to say 
that sin is "ex voluntate " and is not " sine voluntate " — i. e. it is conse- 
quent on the sin of Adam. In these places, however, he has in mind 
voluntariness involving power to the contrary ; as he elsewhere says : — 
' ' cum autem de libera voluntate recte f aciendi loquimur, de ilia scilicet 
in qua homo f actus est, loquimur." (De Lib. Arb., III., xviii.) But that 
native concupiscence involves the consent of the will, he clearly teaches. 
" Nam quid est cupiditas et Isetitia, nisi voluntas in eorum consensionem 
qu^ volumus ? " " Cum consentimus appetendo ea quse volumus, cupidi- 
tas." "Voluntas est quippe in omnibus : imo omnes nihil aliud quam 
voluntates sunt." {Be Oiv. Dei, XIV., c. vii.) " Si quisquam etiam di- 
cit ipsam cupiditatera nihil aliud esse quam voluntatem, sed vitiosam 
peccatoque servientem, non resistendum est : nee de verbis, cum res con- 
8tet, controversia facienda." {Befraett.,!., c. xv.) " Cupiditas porro im- 
proba voluntas est. Ergo improba voluntas malorum omnium causa est." 
{De Lib. Arbit., III., xvii.) Native sin belongs to the will, but to a will 
enslaved. Voluntas is, also, frequently used by Augustine for the voli- 
tive function, by which executive acts of choice are put forth ; and in 
this meaning he frequently speaks of sin as involuntary, or existing 
against the will. Under this head, he is never tired of referring the Pela- 
gians to Rom. vii. 18. 

Thus Voluntas is used by Augustine (1) for the free-will in Adam, 
which included the power to the contrary ; (2) for the spontaneous sinful 
affections consequent on the first sin, in him and his posterity, or the will 
in servitude ; and (3) for the volitionary faculty, or the faculty which 
puts forth imperative choices. 

* This is the view given by Dr. A. A. Hodge, Outlines of Theoloay, pn 
223, 234, 257. • 



344 THE SYSTEM OF DE. TAYLOE IN CONNECTION 

volitions merely, or superficial, imperative choices. He 
woulcf agree with Dr. Shedd, in the following statements : 

'•"It seems to us that by the will is meant a voluntary power that lies 
at the very centre of the soul, and whose movements consist, not so much 
in choosing- or refusing, in reference to particular circumstances, as in de- 
termining the whole man with reference to some great and ultimate end 
of living. The characteristic of the will proper, as distinguished from 
the volitionary faculty, is determination of the whole being tq an ulti- 
mate end, rather than selection of means for attaining that end in a par- 
ticular case." " The will, as thus defined, we aflELrm to be the responsible 
and guilty author of the sinful nature. Indeed this sinful nature is noth- 
ing more nor less than the state of the will ; nothing more nor less than 
its constant and total determination to self, as the ultimate end ot 
living."* 

In short, Dr. Taylor held that sin is a profound, imma- 
nent, permanent preference of the will, whereby a man 
lives to self, instead of living to God ; a preference at the 
root of all subordinate action. Dr. Taylor held that this is 
an elective preference ; the soul sets hefore it this end of 
living ; and by this distinction, he removed a great source of 
ambiguity and confusion from theology. There are invol- 
untary, strictly constitutional dispositions, inclinations; but 
this is voluntary, flowing from an elective act, yet central, 
permanent, and controlling. 

But Dr. Taylor holds that sin is the transgression of 
'known law. Dr. Hodge, in his definitions of moral agency, 
says the same thing, though inconsistently with other parts 
of his own teaching, f Dr. Taylor held that consciousness 

* Essays, pp. 240, 24B. 

f Dr. A. A. Hodge says that to be morally responsible, " a man must 
be a free, rational, moral agent." " 1st. He must be in present possession 
of his reason to distinguish truth from falsehood. 2d. He must ham in 
exercise a moral sense to distinguish right from wrong." — Outlines of 
Theology, p. 221. " Only amoral agent, or one endowed with intelligence, 
conscience, and free will can sin." Ibid., p. 225. " All sin has its root 
in the perverted dispositions, desires, and affections which constitute the 
depraved state of the will. P. 234. If Dr. Hodge would distinguish will 
from desire — that which is purely spontaneous from that which is elective 
— he would clear his system of one prolific source of confusion. 



WITH PRIOR NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY. 345 

is a thing of degrees ; men commonly sin without reflec- 
tion ; there are sins which may be called thoughtless, and 
there are those which maybe called sins of ignorance. The 
" awakening " of a sinner is the deepening of consciousness 
or the passing of consciousness into reflection ; the coming 
of a man to himself. 

But let it be granted that while Dr. Hodge holds that 
during a certain undefined period of infantile existence, sin 
is committed, or there is sin when there is no knowledge, 
and no possibility of the knowledge, of law, while Dr. Tay- 
lor supposes that during this period there is either no sin, or 
there is some degree of consciousness of duty. Shall this 
difference cast Dr. Taylor beyond the pale of " all organized 
churches ? " Let it be noticed that Augustinians who hold 
to sin in infants prior to choice, believe that their guilt is 
washed away by the easy remedy of baptism ; and at the 
present day the universal salvation of those who die in in- 
fancy is generally held. 

And here it would be interesting to ascertain how Dr. 
Hodge reconciles his own opinion on this last topic with the 
creeds. We have been led to believe that he holds to the 
salvation of all persons dying in infancy. The Augustinian 
system holds to the perdition of unbaptized and non-elect 
infants. This is the doctrine of Augustine himself. So 
Jansenius teaches. Moreover, the Westminster Confession 
declares : " Elect infants dying in infancy, are regenerated 
and saved by Christ, through the Spirit." This plainly implies 
that non-elect infants are not saved. It is nonsense to speak 
of elect infants as saved, if all infants are meant. Besides the 
added clause, in the same paragraph, about the salvation of 
" all other elect persons, who are incapable of being out- 
wardly called by the ministry of the word," settles the mean- 
ing of the passage ; for, of course, not all of the heathen are 
here declared to be among the saved. Moreover it is im- 
mediately declared that " others not elected " " cannot be 
saved." The framers of the confession held that dejure all 
15* 



346 THE SYSTEM OF DR. TAYLOR IX CONNECTION 

infants are lost ; that de facto there are two and only two 
wajs in which they can be saved — through the Abrahamic 
covenant which saves the baptized among them, and sover- 
eio;n election which is not limited bv the covenant. The 
Augnstinians believed with Dr. Hodge, that new-born in- 
fants have in them that sin which is the parent of all sins ; 
they believed with him that they are hell-deserving ; and 
thev believed that only the baptized afe.d elected ones among 
them will be saved. Does Dr. Hodge agree to this last 
proposition? If not, does he accept the confession in its 
fair import ? ^ 

One ground of complaint against the IS'ew Haven theology 
is, that it leaves no room for uifant regeneration. But it is 
entirely consistent with Dr. Taylor's system to suppose that 
even those who die in infancy, need the sanctifying influ- 
ence of the Spirit to prevent them fi'om beginning their 
moral life sinfully, and thus that they owe their salvation 
to Christ. t 

In regard to the second of the special errors of the Xew 
Haven theology — the denial of hereditary sin, it is enough 
to answer that Augustinian theology holds to no hereditary 
sin which is not also voluntary. Whatever is peculiar to 
Dr. Taylor on this point results from his disbelief in our 
legal responsibility for Adam's sin. Men will differ in their 
estimate of the importance of this opinion. But it must be 
remembered that Dr. Taylor believed that all men are to- 
tally depraved from the beginning of moral agency, and 
until they are regenerated by the Spirit of God ; and that 
this depravity is connected, as a certain consequence, with 
the first sin of Adam. 

The other points in Dr. Hodge's indictment refer to the 

* We are not so ignorant as to suppose that the old Calvinists all be- 
lieved in the de facto perdition of infants. Yet not only supralapsarians, 
but some infralapsarians, (fz'f? maintain this dogma; and the language oi 
the Westminster Confession, in its fair import, implies it, 

f CJiristiaji Spectator^ vol. v., p. QQ>^. 



WITH PRIOR NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY. 347 

power of God in relation to the control of free agents, and 
rest, to a considerable extent, as we have shown, on a mis- 
apprehension of Dr. Taylor's teaching. 

We may state now in a few words the relation of the ^ew 
Haven divinity to Old Calvinism. 

The peculiarity of the New Haven system is in its view 
respecting tlie non-prevention of sin — of sin in its begin- 
ning and in its continuance in the non-elect. 

Supralapsarian Calvinism held that the fall is divinely 
ordained as a means to an end — that end being the furnish- 
ing of sinful subjects, on whom God could illustrate both 
his compassion and his punitive justice. The election of 
the one class and the reprobation of the other, is the decree 
first in order. This system in reality traces all sin to the 
efiicient agency of the First Cause. " The sixteenth cen- 
tury," says Julius Miiller, " might carry out such thoughts, 
and the most energetic Christian piety was compatible with 
them. To-day, with the clearer consciousness of the prem- 
ises and consequences of that view, it could not be scientifi- 
cally developed without leading to Pantheism." * 

The infralapsarian Calvinism made election have respect 
to the race already fallen. Sin is permitted for inscrutable 
reasons, and from the race of sinners the elect are chosen. 
The decree of election follows the decree permitting the in- 
troduction of sin. 

The infralapsarian system left room for supposing other 
reasons for the permission of sin than that assigned by the 
supralapsarians.f 

The IS'ew Haven divines suggested as a possible explana- 
tion, that to the eye of infinite wisdom it may be better for 
this universe of free agents, to permit sin to exist when and 
where it does exist, than to exert the positive influence 
requisite to prevent it ; that such a voluntary limitation, on 



* Lehre v. d. Sunde, i. , 364. 

f So says Alexander Schweizer, Central- dogmen der Ref. Kirche. 



348 THE SYSTEM OF DK. TAYLOE IN CONInECTION 

the part of God, of his agency, alone comports with the 
characteristics of that moral system which he has chosen to 
establish, and which is the best. A like limitation, for the 
same general reason, takes place in reference to the non- 
elect. 

To the objection that this theory derogates from the 
divine power, it is replied that every theodicy is a scheme of 
optimism ; that the opposite theory of sin being the indis- 
pensable instrument of accomplishing the greatest good, pal- 
pably implies a limitation of the divine power. The dogma 
that God could prevent all sin without detriment to the 
system, clashes with his benevolence. 

These advantages w^ere claimed for the theory suggested 
by the Kew Haven divines : (1.) that it silences the infidel 
objection to the benevolence of God ; (2.) renders the de- 
nunciation of sin as an unqualified evil, consistent with 
truth ; (3.) vindicates the perfect sincerity of the invitations 
and entreaties addressed in the Gospel to sinners ; (4.) di- 
rectly connects the dispensation of the Spirit with the divine 
benevolence, acting with a view to accomplish the greatest 
good in the aggregate. 

It had been objected to Calvinism that in representing the 
compassion of God as fastening on particular persons to the 
exclusion of others, whose case equally appeals to compas- 
sion, the very idea of compassion, as a benevolent feeling, 
is violated. That is to say, it is not from coiwpassion that 
even the elect are saved. It was claimed for the ]^ew 
Haven doctrine that it took from election this arbitrary 
quality by identifying it with a benevolent plan, in the for- 
mation of which, while compassion is felt equally for aU, 
there is no respect of persons, but only an eye to the largest 
good which impartial love, under the guidance of wisdom, 
can attain. 

In a word, the N^ew Haven theology carried the infralap- 
sarian scheme another step, by directly connecting the de- 
crees of God respecting the fall and recovery of man, with 



WITH PRIOR NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY. 349 

his henevolence ; in such a way, however, as to exclude the 
idea that sin, either in itself considered or all things consid- 
ered, is ever preferred bj him to holiness in its stead. God 
gives mankind a probation under law ; foreseeing the fact 
of universal sin, he provides a salvation which is sufficient 
for all and is sincerely urged upon the acceptance of all; 
foreseeing the universal rejection of the Saviour, he adds a 
peculiar supernatural influence to convert the soul, but this 
influence is not dispensed indiscriminately, and without stint, 
but in accordance with a wise plan which will effect the ac- 
tual conversion of only a part of a race, all of whom are alike 
guilty. 

On the subject of human agency in conversion, there have 
been, as all students of history know, two generic types of 
opinion — two great streams of doctrine, taking their rise far 
back in the ancient church. According to one of these 
types of opinion, there belongs to man a cooperative agency 
in relation to the grace of the Spirit. According to the 
other, the Spirit is the sole Efficient, and the human will is 
merely the theatre of His operation. The Greek Church, 
from the earliest times, has cherished the first form of doc- 
trine. Her great fathers, Origen, Athanasius, the two Gre- 
gories, Basil, Chrysostom, and her theologians generally, let 
them differ on other points as they may, are unanimous in 
ascribing to man some remaining power to good. This, too, 
was the Latin theology down to Augustine. It was the 
earlier theology of Augustine himself, after his conversion. 
He at first rejected imconditional election and irresistible 
grace ; and his earlier views unquestionably correspond to 
the current type of thinking at and before that time. While 
the church was fighting Stoics, Gnostics, and Manichseans, 
stress was laid upon the liberty of the will. Augustine, 
carrying out half-developed suggestions of Latin theolo- 
gians before him, brought forward views respecting the 
power of sin over the will, which induced a revolution in 



350 THE SYSTEM OF DE. TAYLOR IN CONNECTION 

anthropology, and have exerted the most extensive and last- 
ing influence. But before Augustine died, the rise of the 
semi-Pelagian party showed how many there were whom 
his opinions failed to satisfy. Henceforward, in the Ro- 
man Catholic Church, the two t^^es of doctrine are found 
side by side. They are severally represented in the middle 
ages by the two great schools, the Thomists and the Scotists, 
coincident with the two great monastic orders, the Domini- 
cans and Franciscans. The Reformers followed Augustine ; 
but soon, on the Lutheran side, Melanchthon set up the 
synergistic doctrine, and among the Lutherans, even where 
the Philippist view was in form disavowed, the prevailing 
doctrine has been that of conditional election. In the Re- 
formed branch of the Protestant Church, Arminius was 
persuaded of the error of the doctrine which he was set to 
defend, and began a most influential movement, the essen- 
tial feature of which is the denial of unconditional election 
and irresistible grace. The Church of England, at first in 
sympathy with Calvinism, became mostly Arminian. With- 
in that church, there sprang up the Wesleyan movement, 
the most zealous, aggressive, and successful religious move- 
ment on the Protestant side, since the age of the Reforma- 
tion — which had for one of its main characteristics an ener- 
getic, not to say passionate, protest against the doctrine of 
unconditional, personal election. Glancing back to the 
Catholic Church, we find, in the sixteenth century, the 
Molinists in conflict with the Dominicans, and the Congre- 
gatio de auxiliis adjourning, after years of fruitless effort, 
without adjusting the dispute ; the Council of Trent, unable 
to harmonize the two great parties, and taking refuge in 
ambiguities ; the Jansenists, in the sixteenth century reviv- 
ing the Augustinian doctrine, only to kindle anew the 
flames of an unending controversy. The marvellous subtlety 
of the great Catholic theologians from Bellarmine to Per- 
rone, has been exercised in defining the tenets of the various 
contending schools, on the relation of free-will to grace. 



WITH PRIOR NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY. 351 

The advocates of each of the two t}^es of doctrine have 
supposed themselves to be standing in defence of practical 
truth of the highest consequence. On the one hand, the 
full responsibility of man is kept prominently in view ; on 
the other, his full dependence on God. On the one hand 
there is a purpose to take from the sinner every excuse for 
his rejection of Christ ; on the other there is a purpose to 
ascribe to God all the praise of his conversion. Man's need 
of redemption, and his capacity, of redemption, are both to 
be saved. A moral government over free and accountable 
beings, the authors of their own actions, and therefore 
proper subjects of punishment and reward, and a providen- 
tial government, laying a foundation for implicit submission, 
resignation, and confidence under all events, and for unre- 
served gratitude for the restoration of the soul from sin, 
must both be recognized in a just and comprehensive system 
of theology. 

'Now there have been individuals who, while seeing that 
the Calvinistic doctrine not only has a place in Scripture, 
but also in Christian experience, have not felt that the ob- 
jections which have been brought forward age after age by 
able and pious men, and by powerful sections of the church, 
are the mere offspring of " carnal reason." They have felt 
that a certain force belongs to these objections ; that they 
embody real difiiculties. Under this conviction, they have 
endeavored to solve them, without parting with the essen- 
tial principles and practical interests inseparable from the 
system against which those objections are directed. Such a 
,man, among the English Puritans, was Richard Baxter. 
Another of the same class was Dr. Taylor. Both were 
charged with deserting the cause which they wished to de- 
fend and to recommend to serious men who regarded it 
with aversion. 

It is a curious fact that men who are loud in their denun- 
ciation of Dr. Taylor's system, profess themselves willing 
to tolerate the extreme Hopkinsians. They are shocked at 



352 THE SYSTEM OF DR. TAYLOK IN CONNECTION 

tlie assertion of a power of contrary clioice, but they can 
put up with the doctrine that God is the creator of sin ! 
They can freely tolerate propositions which are not only de- 
nounced by all the creeds of Christendom, but, if logically 
carried out, would banish all religion from the earth. But 
these, it is said, are errors " in the right direction." In the 
right direction ! That is, in the direction of Spinoza and 
Hegel — in the direction of an all-devouring Pantheism ! 
I^obody at the present day denies predestination. Buckle, 
Mill, et id omne genus, outdo Calvin in asserting predesti- 
nation. But the truth which is denied in these days is the 
free and responsible nature of man and the moral govern- 
ment of God — a government of law, and of rewards and 
punishments, over free agents ; the truth which Dr. Taylor 
was so concerned to rescue from all assaults. Theologians, 
before they cast their anathemas among their brethren, 
would do well to attend to the times in which they live, and 
to the peculiar dangers of the present generation. 

The union of the two dissevered branches of the Presby- 
terian church will be a good thing or an evil thing, accord- 
ing to its effect in promoting or weakening the intolerant 
spirit which forced the separation. If it bring with it a 
catholic temper, and if it do not tend to stifle theological 
inquiry, it will be a great good. But if it result in build- 
ing up sectarian walls to greater height and strength and in 
reinforcing the party of intolerance, it will bring no advan- 
tage. The danger is that the fear of exciting discord, min- 
gled with the fear of church censure, will lead to at least 
a tacit compliance with the wishes of the more exacting 
section. Division is better than stagnation, and is far less 
to be dreaded than the tyranny of an illiberal dogmatism. 
In our age and country, evangelical Christianity is called 
upon to cling to the fundamental contents of the Gospel, 
but it must also tolerate differences in non-essential points, 
and freely concede that measure of freedom of opinion, 
without which a healthy life and progress are impossible. 



WITH PRIOR NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY. 353 

A church which could not find room in its ministry for men 
like Moses Stuart, Lyman Beecher, and Albert Barnes, 
would be, however big in numbers, about the meanest and 
narrowest sect in America. A sect that would cast Zwin- 
gle, the first founder of the Reformed Church, out of its 
ministry ! ^ 

Every man who can read the signs of the times must see 
that the Protestant world is growing tired of sectarian 
Christianity, and is yearning for a more catholic and frater- 
nal connection among the disciples of Christ. If the union 
of the two branches of the Presbyterian Church can be ef- 
fected on a truly catholic basis, we shall hail it with warm 
satisfaction. It will be an event in consonance with the 
prevailing tendency of Christian minds. It will be a blow 
at that sect-system, which is the scandal of our Protestant 
Christianity. We shall regret the reunion, only in case it 

* Zwingle, as is well known, denied that native vitiosiby is properly 
sin, though it be the uniform occasion of sin : ' ' Non enim f acinus con- 
tra legem. Morbus igitur est proprie et conditio," etc. {Ratio Fidei^ 
Niemeyer's ed. , pp. 20, 21.) It is true that the old Protestant creeds 
emphatically asserted the opposite doctrine. The question here is not 
whether they were right or wrong in this. Nor is the question what the 
feelings of men were in regard to such a difference, in an age when, for 
differences no greater than those which divided Calvinists from Luther- 
ans, men were ready to bite and devour one another. But the question 
is whether at the present day, which has the credit of being less swayed 
by the spirit of exclusion, a man who believes in total and universal de- 
pravity, and the truths of redemption, is to be cast out for holding an 
opinion like that of Zwingle, At that time even, and in his case, it 
formed, as far as we know, no barrier to fellowship with him on the part 
of those, whether Lutheran or Reformed, who held the contrary doctrine. 

Objection had been made to Zwingle's expressions on the subject of 
original sin ; and this led him, in 1524, to write his De Peccato Origmali 
Declaration in the form of a letter, to Rhegius {Works^ t. iii.). But, 
with some inconsistencies, his doctrine is here substantially what it had 
been before. The conference at Marburg was in 1529 ; so that the Ratio 
Fidei^ to which we refer above, which was presented at Augsburg in 
1530, represents his mature opinions. He died the next year. 



354 THE SYSTEM OF DE. N. W. TAYLOE. 

serves to give a little longer respite to that over-dogmatic, 
intolerant, seventeenth-century tone of Protestantism, which 
exaggerated minor differences, left an open way for the 
great Papal reaction, provoked the spirit of scepticism in 
all Protestant countries, and stands in perpetual contradic- 
tion to the precepts and spirit of the Testament. 

We have written the foregoing pages, not because we 
are able to accept all the solutions of the high problems of 
theology, which the New Haven divines incorporated in 
their system ; for we are not. "We have written as exposi- 
tors, not as advocates. But we regard the persistent effort 
to stigmatize the New Haven system by affixing to it the 
epithet Pelagian^ as utterly groundless and unjustifiable. 
And we hold in high honor the originators of this theologi- 
cal system. Drs. Ta^^lor, Fitch, and Goodrich formed to- 
gether a corps of theologians of whom it is not too much to 
say that any university in Christendom might well be proud. 
The rare and admirable ability which they displayed in the 
discussion of theological questions was mingled with an un- 
tiring zeal in promoting practical religion. In the pulpit 
or the conference room, as religious teachers or counsellors, 
their labors were abundant, and were attended with unsur- 
passed success. They investigated theology, not so much to 
gratify an intellectual curiosity, as to arm themselves for 
the practical work of persuadyig men to tm-n to God. One 
of this group of eminent men still survives ; * one in whom 
philosophical power, rhetorical felicity, and poetic feeling 
are equally mingled, and whose modest, unambitious charac- 
ter serves to set in stronger relief his almost ura'ivalled 
genius as a theologian and preacher. 

* [Dr. E. T. Fitch. He died Jan. 31, 1871.] 



AUGUSTINIAN AND FEDERAL THEOKIES COMPAEED. 355 



THE AUGUSTINIAN AND THE FEDERAL THEORIES 
OF ORIGINAL SIN COMPARED.* 

The one word which expresses both the nature and the 
end or aim of Christianity, is redemption. The correlate of 
redemption is sin. Parallel, therefore, in importance with 
the doctrine of redemption in the Christian system is the 
doctrine of sin. The two doctrines, like the facts which 
they represent, are mutually inseparable. If it be true just 
now that the person and work of the Redeemer engross at- 
tention, to the comparative exclusion of other topics of the- 
ology, it is equally true that no adequate discussion, and -much 
more no adequate solution, of the questions belonging to this 
theme, are practicable, apart from right views of sin. The 
disease must be known and admitted before you can com- 
prehend the remedy. "They that are whole need not a 
physician, but they that are sick." The Gospel is unintelli- 
gible or is a folly to him who is blind to the vast disorder 
which the Gospel comes to rectify. Either as a theoretical 
or as a practical system, he can make nothing of it. 

We deem it to be of the highest consequence to distin- 
guish, so to speak, great doctrinal facts from philosophical 
theories attached to them. The truths of Christianity in- 
volve and suggest problems, which, in some cases, the Scrip- 
tures do not profess to explain. Explanations of human in- 
vention may be of more or less value ; but it is hurtful not 
only to theology as a science, but also to the cause of practi- 
cal religion, when these explanations are elevated to the rank 

* From The New Englander for July, 1868. 



356 THE AUGUSTINIAN AND THE FEDERAL 

of dogmas, and the inculcation of them is made part and 
parcel of the teaching of the Gospel. 

It is partly this conviction which has led us to undertake 
the present discussion. We believe that a great, unquestion- 
able, universal fact, like that of sin, deserves to be admitted 
in full earnest by everybody. At the same time, we believe 
that there are theories of human device, which have been in- 
vented to clear up difficulties, but which, in truth, create 
vastly more embarrassment than they remove. We do not 
here assert this equally of all the theories which theology 
has broached concerning this great matter. The limits and 
applications of our remark, the progress of the discussion — 
especially if we should pursue it beyond the present essay — 
will make clear. 

There are three theories respecting original sin which we 
shall have occasion specially to consider in this Article. The 
first is the Augustinian ; the second may be called the Au- 
gustino-f ederal or the semi-federal ; and the third the fed- 
eral theory. 

The fundamental idea of the Augustinian theory is that of 
a participation on the part of the descendants of Adam in 
his first sin ; in consequence of which they are born both 
guilty and morally depraved. The fundamental idea of the 
federal theory is that of a vicarious representation on the 
part of Adam, in virtue of a covenant between God and him, 
whereby the legal responsibility for his first sinful act is en- 
tailed upon all his descendants ; participation being excluded, 
but the propriety of his appointment to this vicarious office 
being founded on our relation to him as the common father 
of men. The Augustino-federal or semi-federal theory is a 
combination of the two, the covenant relation of Adam be- 
ing prominent, but participation being also, with more or 
less emphasis, asserted. 

Besides these theories, some have held to hereditary sin, 
but rejected both participation and the covenant. Others 



THEORIES OF ORIGINAL SIN COMPARED. 357 

have embraced the doctrine of an individual pre-existence 
and fall — a pre-existence either transcendental and timeless, 
or in time. Others still have denied the existence of native 
sin, or of any sin prior to a personal act of choice in the 
present life. Spinoza and all other Pantheists deny, of course, 
the essential antagonism of moral good and moral evil, so that 
to them the problem loses its proper significance. But these 
last theories of Christian theology, as well as this antichris- 
tian, necessitarian hypothesis, we have no particular occasion 
to discuss in this place. 

The federal doctrine is the offspring of the seventeenth 
century. In fact it may almost be said of it, in the form in 
which it is now held, that it is the offspring of the eighteenth 
century ; since, in the preceding age, the great majority of the 
theologians who adopted the theory of a covenant coupled 
with it the Augustinian principle. That is to say, they 
maintained the Augustino-federal or semi-federal doctrine 
as above defined. 

The federal theory has of late been defended chiefly by 
Scottish theologians and by the Princeton school in this 
country. It supposes a contract or covenant of the Creator 
with the first man, to the effect that he should stand a moral 
probation on behalf of mankind, so that his act, whether sin- 
ful or holy, should be judicially imputed to them, or ac- 
counted theirs in law ; and the legal penalty, in case he 
sinned, be duly infiicted on them as well as on him. Adam's 
relation to us in this matter is compared to that of a guar- 
dian to his wards, an envoy plenipotentiary to his sovereign, 
or, generally speaking, of an agent to his principal, it being 
understood that the agent keeps within the legal bounds of 
his commission. Adam sinned, his act is imputed to us, 
and the penalty is inflicted. We are condemned to begin 
our existence destitute of righteousness and positively sinful, 
and under a sentence of temporal and eternal death. Notice 
certain particulars of this theory : 

(1.) In distinction fi-om ordinary covenants, in the cove- 



358 THE ATJGUSTINIAN AND THE FEDERAL 

nant with Adam tiie conditions are not mutuallj imposed, 
but it is a sovereign constitution imposed by the Creator 
upon the creature. ^ 

(2.) The representative element, in virtue of which Adam 
stood for his posterity, depends on the special and sovereign 
ordination of God, in distinction from the principles of 
natural and universal justice. In other words, it is not the 
natural union of men with Adam, but the " federal union 
which is the legal groimd of the imputation of his sin to 
them." f The kinship of Adam and his descendants is a 
reason why he, and not another, is appointed their represen- 
tative ; but the justice of imputation depends exclusively 
upon the covenant or the federal relation in which he is 
placed. 

(3.) Our " guilt " for Adam's sin is simply and solely a 
legal responsibility. As we had no real agency of any sort 
in committing that sin, there is no ground for self-reproach 
on account of it ; we are not called upon to repent of it ; nor 
can God, for that act of Adam, look upon us with moral dis- 
approbation. There is no more propriety in regarding our- 
selves wdth moral displeasure on account of that transgres- 
sion, than there would be in taking credit to ourselves for 
the righteousness of Christ. 

(4.) It is said that our inborn moral depravity is the pen- 
alty of that imputed sin, and eternal death the penalty of 
this inborn depravity. But it is also said that for imputed 
sin alone, apart from this inherent depravity, which is its 
penalty, eternal death would not be inflicted. 

Augustine's theory rests on the idea that human nature as 
a whole was deposited in the first man. This nature, as it 
came from the hands of God, was pure. The long battle 
which Augustine fought with Manichsean philosophy, both 
in his own personal experience and after his conversion, 

* Dr. A. A. Hodge, Outlines of Theology, 
flbid., pp. 328, 240. 



THEOKIES OF ORIGINAL SIN COMPARED. 359 

made liim sedulous to avoid their peculiar tenet. But 
human nature, existing in its totality in Adam, was cor- 
rupted in the first act of transgression, and as such is trans- 
mitted to his descendants. The instrument of this trans- 
mission is the sexual appetite. This appetite is itself the 
fruit of the first sin, as well as the means whereby the sin- 
ful nature is communicated from father to son. The race 
was embodied in its first representative, and the qualities 
which it acquired in his act, which was both generic and in- 
dividual, appear, when the race is unfolded or developed, as 
the personal possession of each individual at birth. As a 
personal act, the first sin was not our act but the act of 
another ; yet it was truly the connnon act of mankind in 
their collective or undistributed form of existence. For the 
consequences of this act all are therefore responsible ; and 
as soon as they exist as individuals, they exhibit in them- 
selves the same corruption of nature — the same inordinate 
appetites (concupiscence), and slavery of the will to sin — 
which resulted to Adam. " This theory," says ISTeander, "^ 
" would easily blend with Augustine's speculative form of 
thought, as he had appropriated to himself the Platonico- 
Aristotelian realism in the doctrine of general conceptions, 
and conceived of general conceptions as the original types of 
the kind realized in individual things." Into this particular 
topic connected with Augustine's philosophy, we do not care 
to enter here. It is a fact that realism, either in the extreme 
Platonic form or in the more moderate Aristotelian type, 
prevailed from Augustine down through the middle ages, 
being embraced by the orthodox schoolmen, and ruling both 
the great schools during the productive, golden era of 
scholastic theology. That the realistic mode of thought ex- 
tensively influenced Protestant theology at the Eeformation 
and afterwards, admits of no question. But since it is far 
from being true that all Augustinians have been avowed, 

* Church History^ ii., 609. 



360 THE AUGUSTINIAN AND THE FEDERAL 

much- less, self -consistent, realists, it is better when we 
speak of them as a class, to say that they are swayed by a 
realistic mode of thought than that they are the advocates 
of an explicit realism. It shouy be added that realism, as 
far as it affected Angustine, was rather a prop than a source 
of his doctrine. The fact of innate sin was so deeply lodged 
in his convictions that he was ready to welcome any plausi- 
ble support or defence of it that lay within his reach. 

There is no need of citing from Augustine passages in 
which his doctrine of a generic sin in Adam is set forth. 
They are familiar to scholars. Indeed, after he became es- 
tablished in this opinion, and through all of his numerous 
treatises relating to the Pelagian controversy, there is a great 
uniformity in his expressions on this subject. The same set 
of propositions and arguments appears and reappears. In 
that great sin of the first man, our nature was deteriorated, 
and not only became sinful, but generates sinners."^ We 
were all in Adam and sinned when he sinned. In his inter- 
pretation of Romans v. 12, he first sets aside the supposition 
that the in quo of the Yulgate refers to " sin " or to '' death," 
and infers that it must refer to Adam himself. " I^othing 
remains," he says, " but to conclude that in that first man all 
are understood to have sinned, because all were in him when 
he sinned ; whereby sin is brought in with birth and not re- 
moved save by the new birth." He then quotes approvingly 
the sentence ascribed to Hilary, the Koman deacon : " it is 
manifest that in Adam all sinned, so to speak, eoi masse.'''' f 
By that sin we became a corrupt mass — massa jperditionis. 

So important was this hypothesis, in his view, that his de- 
fence of the doctrine of original sin turned upon it. With- 
out it, he knew of no refuge against the sharp and merciless 
logic of his adversaries. Pelagias himself was a man of no 
mean ability ; but in Julian of Eclanum, Augustine found his 

* Be Nupt. et Concup., II,, xxxiv. 

t Cont. duas Bpp. Pelag., iv., 7; Conf. Op. Imp.^ II., Ixiii. ; De Pec. 
Mer. et Rcmis., III., vii. 



THEORIES OF ORIGINAL SIN COMPARED. 361 

full match in dialectic ability. Julian was an acute and vig- 
orous, as well as an honest and fearless antagonist. He 
seized on the vulnerable points in Augustine's theory, and 
pursued him with questions and objections, which the latter 
was utterly unable to parry except by his realistic hypoth- 
esis. This is strikingly shown in the Ojpus Imjperfectum or 
rejoinder to the second response of Julian. The Pelagian 
makes his appeal to the sense of justice which God has im- 
planted in every human breast, and which utters a firm and 
indignant protest against the doctrine that we are blamed, 
condemned, and punished for what we could not have pre- 
vented. He lays hold of passages which Augustine had 
written in favor of the voluntaiiness of sin, whilst he was 
bent on controverting the Manichseans. To all this Augus- 
tine could only reply that sin began in an act of the human 
will — the wdll of Adam ; that in him was the very nature 
with which we are born ; that we thus participated in that 
act, and justly partake of the corruption that ensued upon 
it. He constantly falls back, first on the authority of Paul, 
in the fifth of Romans, and hardly less often on the author- 
ity of Ambrose, whose assertion of our community of being 
with Adam and agency in his transgression, had the greatest 
weight with his admiring and reverential pupil. 

But how vital the hypothesis of sinning in Adam was in 
Augustine's theology is perhaps most manifest in the way in 
which he treats the litigated question of the origin of souls. 
We may say here that a great mistake is made by those who 
imagine that creationists — that is, those who believe that each 
soul is separately created — cannot be realists. Whether 
they can be consistent and logical realists may, to be sure, 
be doubted. At the present day traducianism — the theory 
that souls result from procreation — is accepted by theologi- 
ans who believe, with Augustine, that we sinned in Adam. 
But this is very far from being the uniform fact in the past. 
Even Anselm, like the schoolmen generally, was a creation- 
ist. He, with a host of theologians before and after him, 
16 



362 THE AUGUSTrNTAN AND THE FEDERAL 

held firmly to our real, responsible participation in Adam's 
fall, and to the corruption of our nature in that act, and jet 
refused to count himself among the traducians. We must 
take history as it is and not seek to read into it our reason- 
ings and inferences. K we do not find philosophers self -con- 
sistent, we must let them remain self -inconsistent, instead of 
altering their systems to suit our ideas of logical harmony. 

In respect to the question of the origin of souls, the letter 
of Augustine to Jerome is a most interesting document, and 
one, the importance of which, we are inclined to think, has 
not been duly recognized.^" He had previously expressed 
himself as doubtful on the question, though obviously lean- 
ing towards the traducian sicle.t But the fear of material- 
istic notions, enhanced as it was by the opposition of the 
church to the refined materialism of TertuUian, deterred 
Augustine then, as always, fi'om espousing the traducian 
theory. This fear, it may be here observed, together with 
the feeling that this theory gives too much agency to second 
causes in the production of the soul, operated in subsequent 
times to dissuade theologians from giving sanction to the 
same hypothesis. The letter to Jerome is a candid and 
memorable expression of the difficulties in which the writer 
found himself involved on the subject to w^hich it relates. 
To him Augustine resorts for light. He begins by saying 
that he has prayed and still prays God to grant that his ap- 
plication may be successful. The question of the origin of 
souls is one of deep concern to him. Of the soul's immor- 
tality he has no doubt, though it be not immortal as if it 
were a part of God, and in the same mode in which he is 
immortal. Of the immateriality of the soul, he is equally 
certain ; and his arguments to show the absurdity of sup- 
posing the soul to occupy space, are convincingly stated. He 
is certain, moreover, that the soul is fallen into sin by no 
necessity, whether imposed by its own nature or by God. 



., Classis III., clxv. f Be Gen. ad Lit., L. x. 



THEORIES OF OEIGINAL SIN COMPAEED. 363 

Yet the soul is sinful, and without baptism will perish. How 
can this be ? He entreats Jerome to solve the problem. 
" Where did the soul contract the guilt by which it is 
brought into condemnation ? " In his book De Libero Ar- 
hitrio, he. had made mention of four opinions in regard to 
the origin of souls — first, that souls are propagated, the soul 
of Adam alone having been created ; secondly, that for every 
individual a new soul is created ; thirdly, that the soul pre- 
exists in each case, and is sent by God into the body at 
birth ; fourthly, that the soul pre-exists, but comes into the 
body of its own will. A fifth supposition that the soul is a 
part of Deity, he had not had occasion to consider. But he 
had gained no satisfactory answer to the problem. Beset by 
inquirers, he had been unable to solve their queries. JN'ei- 
ther by prayer, reading, reflection, or reasoning, had he been 
able to find his way out of his perplexity. 



* 



" Teach me, therefore, I beg you, what I should teach, what I should 
hold ; and tell me, if it be true that souls are made now and separately 
with each separate birth, where in little children they sin, that they 
should need in the sacrament of Christ the remission of sin ; " " or if 
they do not sin, with what justice they are so bound by another's sin, 
when they are inserted in the mortal, propagated members, that damna- 
tion follows them, unless it is prevented by the church [through baptism] ; 
since it is not in their power to cause the grace of baptism to be brought 
to them. So many thousands of souls, then, which depart from their 
bodies without having received Christian baptism — with what justice are 
they condemned, in case they are newly created, with no preceding sin, 
but, on the contrary, by the will of the Creator, each of these souls was 
given to each new-born child, for animating whom he created and gave 
it — by the will of the Creator, who knew that each of them, through no 
fault of his own, would go out of the body without Christian baptism ? 
Since, then, we can neither say of God that he compels souls to become 
sinful, or punishes the innocent, and since likewise it is not right to assert 
that those who depart from the body without the sacrament, even little 
children, escape from damnation ; " 7 beseech you to say Jiow this opinion is 
defended whidi assumes that souls come into being ^ not all from that one soiH 

* IV. — " et ea neque orando, neque legendo, neque cogitando et ratio- 
cinando invenire potuimus." 



364 THE AUGUSTINIAN AND THE FEDERAL 

of the first man, hut for every man a separate soul, like that one for 
Adam ? " 

Other objections to creationism, Augustine feels competent 
easily to meet ; but when it comes to the penalties inflicted 
on little children, he begs Jerome to believe that he is in a 
strait and knows not what to think or to say. " Magnis, 
mihi, crede, coarctor angustiis, nee quid respondeam prorsus 
invenio." What he had written in his book on Free-Will of 
the imaginary benefits of suffering even to infants, will not 
suffice to explain even the sufferings of the unbaptized in 
this life. " I require, therefore, the ground of this condem- 
nation of little children, hecause, in case souls are separately 
created^ I do not see that any of them sin at that age^ nor do 
Ihelieve that any one is condemned hy God^ whom He sees to 
have no sinJ^ He repeats again and again this pressing in- 
quiry. " Something perfectly strong and invincible is re- 
quired, which will not force us to believe that God condemns 
any soul without any fault." He fervently desires from Je- 
rome the means of escaping from this great perplexity ; he 
would prefer to embrace the Creationist theory ; but on this 
theory, he sees no possible mode in which native, inherent 
depravity and the destruction of the unbaptized can be held, 
consistently with the justice of God. 

Such was the theology of Augustine. 'Ko one can be 
charged with sin but the sinner. He knows nothing of guilt 
without fault. If there is no real participation in Adam's 
transgression on our part, he can see no justice in making 
us partakers of its penalty, or in attributing to us a sinful 
nature from birth. '' Persona corrumpit naturam ; natura 
corrumpit personam." So the doctrine was summarily stated. 
In Adam human nature, by his act, was vitiated. That 
corrupted nature is transmitted, through physical generation, 
to his descendants. They acted in him — in another — and 
are, therefore, truly counted sinners, being sinfully corrupt 
from the beginning of individual life. 

This became the orthodox theology of the Western 



THEORIES OF ORIGINAL SIN COMPARED. 865 

Church. Where there were deviations fi'om it in the 
Cathohc Church, in the middle ages or subsequently, the 
attempt was always made to cover up the difference and to 
maintain a seeming conformity to the teaching of the au- 
thoritative Latin Father. As Augustine, more than any 
other human teacher, inspired the Reformers, so his doctrine 
on this subject was generally accepted without dispute. 
The pages of the leading Reformers swarm with citations 
from him on this as on various other topics. ]^or is this 
agreement with Augustine confined to them. Through the 
seventeenth century, after the doctrine of original sin, in a 
great portion of the Protestant Church, had taken on a new 
phase, still it was to Augustine that all appealed. There is 
hardly a Calvinistic writer of distinction in that age who 
does not fall back on his characteristic definitions, and seek 
by means of them to fortify the doctrine of innate guilt and 
depravity. Having pointed out the essential features of the 
Augustinian view, we might spare ourselves the trouble of 
showing in detail, by historical inquiry, that every theory at 
variance with it is modern and an innovation. Who does 
not know that the old Protestant, as well as the orthodox 
Catholic theology, was Augustinian ? But as our main 
design is to explain the origin of certain departures from 
this ancient and long- prevailing doctrine, we shall, as briefly 
as possible, follow down the course of its history. 

Anselm, from his mingled devoutness and intellectual 
subtlety, not less than from his chronological position, may 
be called the father of the schoolmen. As a theologian, 
until we come to the Angelic Doctor, he stands without a 
rival. In his able and ingenious treatise on original sin, 
which forms a kind of sequel to the Ctir Deus Homo, he 
says, in agreement with the Augustinian theory, that when 
Adam and Eve sinned 

"The whole, which they were, was debilitated and corrupted;" not 
only the body, but through the body, the soul ; and " because the whole 



366 THE ATJGUSTINIAN AND THE FEDERAL 

human nature was in them, and outside of them there was nothing of it, 
the whole was weakened and corrupted. There remained, therefore, in 
that nature the debt of complete justice " — that is the obligation to be 
perfectly righteous — " which it received, and the obligation to make 
satisfaction, because it forsook this justice, together with the very cor- 
ruption which sin induced. Hence, as in case it had not sinned, it would 
be propagated just as it was made by God ; so, after sin, it would be propa- 
gated just as it made itself by sinning. " Thus it follows " that this nature 
is born in infants with the obligation upon it to satisfy for the first sin, 
which it always could have avoided, and with the obligation upon it to 
have original righteousness, which it always was able to preserve. Nor 
does impotence excuse ifc " — that is, this nature — *' even in infants, since 
in them it does not render what it owes, and inasmuch as it made itself 
what it is, by forsaking righteousness in the first parents, in whom it was 
as a whole — in quibus tota erat — and it is always bound to have power 
which it received to the end that it might continually preserve its right- 
eousness." * 

Tliat sin pertains exclusively to the rational will is a 
proposition which Anselm clearlj defines and maintains ; 
and on this branch of the subject he gives to the Augustinian 
theology a precision which it had not previously attained. 
Augustine holds that native concupiscence, or the disorder 
and inordinate excitableness of the lower appetites, is sin- 
ful ; but he also holds it to be voluntary, in the large sense 
of the term. In the regenerate, the guilt (reatus) of con- 
cupiscence is pardoned ; but the principle is not extirpated. 
It does not bring new guilt, however, upon the soul, unless 
its impulses are complied with, or consented to, by the will. 
To these opinions the strict Augustinians in the Catholic 
Church have adhered ; but, laying hold of that distinction 
between concupiscence and the voluntary consent to it, 
which Augustine assumes in respect to the baptized, the 
semi-Pelagians, as they have been generally styled by their 
opponents, have affirmed that native concupiscence is not 
itself sinful, but only becomes such by the will's compliance 
with it. At the first view, it' would seem as if Ansehn 
adopted this theory, and so far deviated from Augustine. 

* De Concept. Virg. et Orig. Pec. , ii. 



THEORIES OF ORIGINAL SIN COMPARED. 367 

Anselm declares that as sin belongs to the will, and to the 
will alone, no individual is a sinner until he is possessed of 
a w411, and with it inwardly consents to the evil desire. 
" The appetites themselves," he says, " are neither just nor 
unjust in themselves considered. They do not make a man 
just or unjust, simply because he feels them within him ; 
but just or unjust, only as he consents to them with the 
will, when he ought not." The animals have these appe- 
tites, but are rendered neither holy nor unholy on account of 
them. "Wherefore there is no injustice (or unrighteous- 
ness) in their essence, but in the rational will following 
them."* This certainly sounds like " new-school " theol- 
ogy. But we find that Anselm holds fully to the propaga- 
tion of sin through seminal or spermatic corruption, after 
the manner of Augustine. He asserts, as we have seen, 
the existence of a properly sinful nature which is trans- 
mitted from generation to generation. His real theory 
would appear to be, that a wrongly-determined will, or a 
will already determined to evil, is a part of our inheritance. 
But he sticks to his sharply-defined proposition that sin is 
predicable of the will alone ; and hence he denies that sper- 
matic corruption is sinful. Sin is not in semine^ but simply 
the necessity that there shall be sin when the individual 
comes to exist and to be possessed of a rational soul, f This 
whole theory turns upon the distinction of nature and per- 
son. The descendants of Adam were not in him as indi- 
viduals ; yet w^hat he did as a person he did not do sine 
natura ; and this nature is ours as well as his.:|: Thus, no 
fman is condemned except for his own sin. " Therefore, 
when the infant is condemned for original sin, he is con- 
demned not for the sin of Adam, but for his own. For if 
he had not sin of his own, he would not be condemned." 
This sin originated in Adam, " but this ground which lay in 
Adam, why infants are born sinners, is not in other parents, 

* Be Concept. Virg. et Orig, Pec.^ c. iv. f Ibid., c. vii. % Ibid., c. xxiii 



368 THE AUGUSTINIAN AND THE FEDERAL 

since in tliem liuman nature has not tlie power, that right- 
eous children should be propagated from it.* This matter 
was decided and irreversibly so far as more immediate par- 
ents are concerned, in Adam. It is Anselm's opinion, we 
may add, that original sin in infants is less guilty than if 
they had personally committed the first sin, as Adam did. 
The quantity of guilt in them is less. In this he does not 
differ from Augustine, who thought that the perdition of 
infants would be milder and easier to bear than that of 
adult sinners. 

The most popular text-book of theology in the middle 
ages was the Sentences of Peter Lombard. It held its place 
for centuries in the European universities, and there were 
few of the foremost schoolmen w^ho did not produce a com- 
mentary upon it. It presents the doctrine of Augustine in 
its essential parts, with abundant citations from his writings. 
Sin did not spread in the w^orld, it affirms, by imitation of a 
bad example, but by propagation, and appears in every one 
at birth. f Original sin is not mere liability to punishment 
for the first sin, but involves sin and guilt. That first sin 
not only ruined Adam, but the whole race likewise ; since 
from him we derive at once condemnation and sin. That 
original sin in us is concupiscence. Our nature was vitiated 
in Adam ; " since all were that one man ; that is, were in 
him materialiterP We were in him " materialiter, causali- 
ter," or seminally. The body is wholly derived from him. 
It is the doctrine of the Lombard that each soul is created 
by itself, but is corrupted by contact with the material part 
which is vitiated in Adam. % He gives this explicit answer 
to the problem which Augustine declines to solve. The 
law of propagation, says Peter Lombard, is not suspended 
in consequence of the entrance of sin into the world ; and 
the corruption of the soul in each case is an inevitable re- 

* Be Concept. Virg. et Orig, Pec, c. xxxi. 
t Lib. ii., Dist. xxx. (Cologne, 1576). % Lib. ii., Dist. xxxi., xxxii. 



THEORIES OF ORIGINAL SIN COMPARED. 369 

suit of its conjunction with the body. Augustine, in the 
Encheiridion, had admitted that the sins of more imme- 
diate parents as far back as the third or fourth generation, 
may be imputed to the child, but had not positively sanc- 
tioned this view. The Lombard argues that he could not have 
entertained it without inconsistency, since it would be in- 
compatible with his doctrine that the sin and punishment 
of infants are comparatively light.* He does not deny the 
position of Anselm that sin belongs to the will ; f yet he is 
careful to say that the soul on uniting wdth the body be- 
comes ipso facto corrupt ; since if an act of self-determina- 
tion be supposed to intervene, it would be actual, and not 
original sin. On the whole, his representations accord with 
what we have explained to be the idea of Anselm. 

We pass now to the prince of the scholastic theologians, 
Thomas Aquinas. This most acute and profoimd writer 
manifests caution in handling so difficult a theme ; but his 
conclusions, as might be expected, coincide with the dogma 
of Augustine. Aquinas says that " although the soul is not 
transmitted, since the virtus seminis cannot cause a rational 
soul," yet by this means " human nature is transmitted from 
parent to offspring, and with it, at the same time, the infec- 
tion of nature." :j: Hence the newborn child is made par- 
taker of the sin of the first parent, since from him he re- 
ceives his nature through the agency of the generative func- 
tion. No man is punished except for his own sin. "We are 
punished for the sins of near ancestors only so far as we fol- 
low them in their transgressions. § The main point in the 
explication of original sin is the nature of our union with 
Adam. This Aquinas sets forth by an analogy. The will, 
by an imperative volition, bids a limb, or member of the 
body, commit a sin. Now an act of homicide is not imputed 
to the hand considered as distinct from the body, but is im- 
puted to it as far as it belongs to the man as part of him, 

* Lib. ii., Dist. xxiii. f Ibid., Dist. xlii. 

:j: Sum. Theol.^ I., ii. Q. Ixxxi. , Art. i. § Ibid., Q. Ixxx., Art. viii. 
16* 



370 THE ATJGUSTINIAN AND THE FEDERAL 

and is moved by the first principle of motion in him — that 
is, the will. Being thus related, the hand, %oere it j^ossessed 
of a nature capable of sin, would be gnilty. So all who are 
born of Adam are to be considered as one man. They are 
as the many m.embers of one body. 

" Thus the disorder (inordinatio) which is in that man who sprang 
from Adam, is not voluntary by the act of his own will, but by the will 
of the first parent, who moves ' motione generationis,' all who derive 
their origin from him, just as the soul's will moves all the limbs to an 
act ; whence the sin which is derived from the first parent to his posterity 
is called original : in the same way that the sin which is derived from the 
soul to the members of the body, is called actual ; and as the actual sin 
which is committed by a bodily member is the sin of that member, only 
so far as that member pertains to the man himself (est aliquid ipsius 
hominis), so original sin belongs to an individual, only so far as he receives 
his nature from the first parent." * 

Cajetan, the reno^vned commentator of Aquinas, under- 
takes to explain and defend the analogy. The descendant 
of Adam belongs to Adam, as a hand to the body ; and from 
Adam, through natm^al generation, he at once receives his 
nature and becomes a partaker of sin. 

The realistic character of Aquinas's doctrine appears 
strongly in the argument by which he attempts to prove 
that no sins but the first sin of the first man are imputed to 
us. f He sharply distinguishes between nature and person. 
Those things which directly pertain to an individual, like 
personal acts, are not transmitted by natural generation. 
The grammarian does not thus communicate to his offspring 
the science of grammar. Accidental properties of the indi- 
vidual may, indeed, in some cases, descend from father to 
son, as, for example, swiftness of body. But qualities, 
which are purely personal, are not propagated. As the per- 
son has his own native properties and the qualities given by 
grace, so the nature has both. Original righteousness was a 
gracious gift to the nature at the outset, and was lost in 

* Sum. TheoL, I., ii. Q. Ixxxi., Art. i. f Ibid., Art iL 



THEORIES OF ORIGINAL SIN COMPARED. 371 

Adam in the first sin. " Just as original righteousness 
would have been transmitted to his posterity at the same 
time with the nature, so also is the opposite disorder 
(inordinatio). But other actual sins of the first parent, or 
of other later parents, do not corrupt the nature, as concerns 
its qualities {quantum ad id quod naturce est), but only as 
concerns the qualities of the person." ^ 

Original righteousness was principally and primarily in 
the subjection of the will to God. From the alienation of 
the will from God, disorder has arisen in all the other 
powers of the soul. Hence the deprivation of original 
righteousness, through which the will was subject to God, is 
the first or formal element in original sin, while concupis- 
cence or "inordinatio" is the second, or 7naterial element. 
Thus original sin affects the will, in the first instance. Its 
first effect is the wrong bent of the will. Aquinas's analy- 
sis of native, inherent depravity is substantially accordant 
with that of Anselm. 

The Reformers, as we have said, were Augustinians. As 
the imputation of Adam's sin was conceded generally by 
their Catholic opponents, as Pighius and Catharinus, at the 
same time that innate depravity, in the strict sense, was fre- 
quently denied, it was on this last element in the doctrine of 
original sin that the first Protestant theologians chiefly in- 
sisted. But the same realistic mode of thought — the same 
theory of a common nature corrupted in Adam — pervades 
their writings. In Calvin's representation of the doctrine, two 
propositions are constantly asserted. One is, that we are not 
condemned or punished for Adam's sin, apart from our own 
inherent depravity which is derived from him. The sin 
for which we are condemned is our own sin ; and were it 
not for this, we should not be condemned. The other propo- 
sition is, that this sin is ours, for the reason that our natm-e 

* Ibid., II., Q. Ixxx., Art. iii., iv. 



372 THE AUGrSTINTAN AND THE FEDEEAL 

was vitiated in Adam, and we receive it in tlie condition in 
which it was put by the first transgression. 

These propositions are so clearly set forth, both in the 
Institutes and the Commentaries, that it is hardly requisite 
to prove that he held them. But to remove all doubt on 
this point, and for another purpose which will appear later, 
we ti'anslate the following passages : 

" Observe the order here, for Paul says that sin preceded ; that from it 
death followed. For there are some who contend that we are so ruined 
by the sin of Adam, as if vae 'perished by no iniquity {culpa) of our own, in 
the sense that he only as it were sinned for us. But the apostle expressly 
affirms that sin is propagated to all who suffer its punishment. And he 
urges this especially when he assigns the reason shortly after, why all the 
posterity of Adam are subject to the dominion of death. The reason is, 
he says, that all have sinned. That sinning of which he speaks, is being 
corrupted and vitiated. For that natural depravity which we bring from 
our mother's womb, although it does not at once bring forth its fruits, 
yet it is sin before the Lord and deserves the penalty. And this is the sin 
which is called original. For as Adam at his first creation had received 
gifts of divine grace as well for himself as for his posterity ; so, separa- 
ting from God, he depraved, corrupted, vitiated, ruined, our nature in 
himself ; for having lost the image of God, he could only bring forth seed 
like himself. Therefore we have all sinned, as we are all imbued with 
natural corruption, and so are iniquitous and perverse." * 

Calvin renders his doctrine perfectly clear by the distinc- 
tion which he makes, in his note on ver. IT, between Christ 
and Adam. " The first difference," he says, " is that we are 
condemned for the sin of Adam not by imputation alone, as 
if the punishment of the sin of another were exacted of us : 
but we bear its punishment because we are guilty of the sin 
(culpae) also, in so far as our nature, vitiated in him, is held 
bound (obstringitur) with the guilt of iniquity." 

To the same effect are his remarks on Ephesians ii. 3 
(" we are by natm*e children of ^vrath"). The passage, he 
says, confutes those who deny original sin ; " for that which 
natm-ally is in all, is surely original : Paul teaches that we 

* Com. on Roman, v. 13. 



THEORIES OF ORIGINAL SIN COMPARED. 373 

are all naturally exposed to damnation : therefore sin is in- 
herent in us, hecause God does not condemn the innocent.'^'' 
** God," he adds, " is not angry with innocent men, but with 
sin. l^OT is it a cause for wonder if the depravity which is 
born (ingenita) in us from our parents is deemed sin before 
God, because the seed which is thus far latent, he discerns 
and judges." 

In full coincidence with these statements, is the chapter 
on Original Sin, in the Institutes : 

These two things are to be distinctly observed ; first, that being thus 
vitiated and perverse in all the parts of our nature, we are, on account 
of this corruption, deservedly held as condemned and convicted before 
God, to whom nothing is acceptable but justice, innocence and purity; 
for this is not liahilily to punishment for another^ s crime ; for when it is 
said that by this sin of Adam we become exposed to the judgment of God, 
it is not to be understood as if, being ourselves innocent and undeserving 
of punishment we had to bear the sin (culpam) of another ; but because 
by his transgression we all incur a curse, he is said to have involved ua 
in guilt (obstrinxisse). Nevertheless, not only has punishment passed 
from him upon us, but pollution instilled from him is inherent in us, to 
which punishment is justly due. Wherefore Augustine, although he 
often calls it another's sin (that he may the more clearly show that it is 
derived to us by propagation), at the same time asserts it to belong to 
each individual. And the apostle himself most expressly declares (Rom. 
V, 12) that ' death has passed upon all men, for that all have sinned ' — that 
is are involved in original sin and defiled with its stains. And so also in- 
fants themselves, as they bring their, condemnation with them from their 
mother's womb, are exposed to punishment, not for another's sin but for 
their own. For though they have not yet produced the fruits of their ini- 
quity, they have still the seed inclosed in them ; even their whole nature 
is as it were a seed of sin, and cannot be otherwise than odious and abom- 
inable to God, Whence it follows that it is properly accounted sin in the 
eye of God, because there could not be guilt {reatus) without fault {culpa). 
The other thing to be remarked is that this depravity never ceases in us, 
but is perpetually producing new fruits, etc. " * 

That sin has its seat in the will and that the wrong bent 
of the will is the sole obstacle in the way of the sinner's re- 
pentance, Calvin distinctly affirms. 



* Inst., I., i., 8. 



374 THE ATJGUSTINIAN AND THE FEDERAL 

Turning to the Lutheran side, we find that Melanchthon 
defines original sin to be the corruption with which we are 
born, and which is consequent on the fall of Adam."^ He 
says further : " If any one wishes to add that we are born 
guilty on account of the fall of Adam, I make no objection 
(non impedio)." f But he strongly objects to the imputation 
of the first sin, independently of our native, inherited de- 
pravity. Original sin, he says, is, in \i% formal aspect, guilt, 
or the condemnation of the person who is guilty ; but this 
relation pertains to some sin. The question, therefore, is, 
what is the proximate foundation of this relation, or as they 
call it, the proximate matter — materiale propinquum. The 
foundation of this guilt is the vice in man which is born 
with us, which is called defects, or evil inclinations, or con- 
cupiscence." The imputation of the first sin is conditioned 
on — in the order of nature, consequent upon — this innate de- 
pravity. X 

Both elements, imputation of the first sin and inherent 
depravity are distinctly brought out in the Augsburg Con- 
fession, as issued by Melanchthon in 1540. 

Brentius, another leading name, among the early Lutheran 
theologians, exemplifies the prevalent realistic mode of rep- 
resentation upon this subject. " Inasmuch as all the pos- 
terity of Adam were in his loins, not for himself alone was 
he made an idolater in his own person, but he propagated 
idolatry to all his posterity, so that as many men as descend 
from him, are idolaters." " He drew with him the w^hole 
human race, which was then in his loins and was to be pro- 
pagated from him, into so great ruin, that it could neither 
entertain right sentiments respecting God with its mind or 
obey God with its will." § 

The Lutheran theologians were most of them, including 
Luther himself, traducians. Herein they differed from the 
body of the Calvinists. 

*Loc. Com. (Hase'sEd., v. p. 86). f Ibid., p. 85. % Ibid., p. 91. 

§ Quoted by Heppe, Bogm. d. Deutsch. Prot. ini l^tru JahJir. I., 390, 391. 



THEOEIES OF ORIGINAL SIN COMPAKED. 375 

We have now to inquire into the origin of the federal 
theory ? How did the doctrine of a covenant with Adam 
become connected with Augiistinism ? The best histories of 
doctrine asci'ibe this innovation to Cocceius the celebrated 
theologian of Holland, Professor at Franeker, and then at 
Lejden, where he died in 1669. It is not denied that 
germs of this theory may be found scattered in the writings 
of theologians of an earlier date. It is seldom that a theory 
is absolutely new with him who first gives it currency, and 
with whose name it is afterwards associated. But Cocceius 
has the credit not only of introducing the method of bring- 
ing the matter of systematic theology under the three cove- 
nants, but also of engrafting the conception of a covenant 
with Adam, as the representative of the race, upon Calvin- 
istic theology. There is no distinct mention of such a 
covenant, as far as we have been able to discover, either 
in the writers of the first age of the Reforniation, or after- 
wards until near the time of Cocceius. There is no mention 
of such a covenant in the Augsburg Confession, the Form 
of Concord, or in any other of the principal creeds of the 
Lutheran Church. There is no mention of it in the princi- 
pal Confessions of the Kef ormed Church, with the exception 
of the Creeds of Westminster ; for the Formula Consensus 
Helvetica, where the Covenant appears, is a creed of minor 
importance and of comparatively insignificant authority. 
We do not find the doctrine of a covenant with Adam in 
the First Basle Confession (1532), the Second Basle (or First 
Helvetic) (1536), the Gallic (1559), the First Scottish Con- 
fession (1560), the Belgic (1562), the Heidelberg Catechism 
(1573), the Second Helvetic Confession (1565), the Hunga- 
rian (1570), the Polish (Declaratio Thoruniensis, 1645), or 
the Anglican Articles (1562). 

Perhaps we shall best satisfy our readers in regard to this 
historical question, by referring to one or two authorities of 
great weight. The first is Weissmann, the learned Lutheran, 
who in his history of the church in the seventeenth cen- 



376 THE AUGUSTINIAN AND THE FEDEEAL 

tur J, has entered into a somewhat full account of the rise of 
the federal theology. The federal method, he says, origi- 
nated with Cloppenburgius, a Franeker theologian, and was 
farther carried out by Cocceius. To these men it is chiefly 
due. From their time, the federal method spread in the 
Reformed Church, especially of Holland, so that the systems 
constructed on this model can hardly be numbered. " Among 
Lutherans," adds Weissmann, " this method did not find 
many favorers. Eather does Foertschius think, and public- 
ly teach in his Breviariwn Select. Theol., that this method 
has not less inconveniences than belong to methods previ- 
ously nsed ; adding, that the federal doctrine, both respect- 
ing covenants and promises, as it is held among the learned 
and publicists, cannot be applied to theology, except by an 
abuse and perversion of terms." * In another passage, Weiss- 
mann sets forth the objections to federalism, which were 
brought forward by Lutheran theologians. Among them 
are the considerations, that the word covenant in the JSTew 
Testament is very sparingly used, and does not signify that 
which is here in controversy ; that in covenants and con- 
tracts respect is had to a benefit to be conferred on both 
parties, which, as far as God is concerned, cannot be here 
supposed ; that man previously owed all things to God, and, 
therefore, there is no need of a covenant and compact ; that 
the Mosaic economy alone partakes of the nature of a cove- 
nant.! 

Under the name of Cocceianism, were included a variety of 
opinions ; and the advocates and antagonists of this theolo- 
gian waged a heated conflict that agitated the Reformed 
Church, especially in Holland. llSTumerous opponents of 
Cocceianism who were actuated by hostility to the Cartesian 
philosophy, or to some other real or imaginary doctrine which 
came to be identified with the name of Cocceius, held to the 

* Weissmann, Introductio in Memorabilia Eccl. Histo7'icB Sacrce^ etc., vol. 
ii. , p. 698 seq. 
t Ibid., p. 1103. 



THEORIES OF OETGINAL SIN COMPAEED. 377 

theory of a covenant with Adam. Yan Mastricht, for ex- 
ample, was an Anti-Cocceian. Yet it remains true that this 
last theory foimd its way into theology, very much through 
the influence of the most distinguished advocate of the fed- 
eral method. 

A second witness respecting the rise of the federal theory, 
is Campegius Yitringa. In the text, and especially in the 
editorial notes connected with the text, of his system, is a 
very full statement of the history of this change in theology. 
For some time, says Yitringa, it has pleased divines to de- 
scribe the state of man in Paradise, by the term covenant, 
which they style the covenant of works or of nature, to dis- 
tinguish it from the covenant of grace. " That Adam lived 
in a state of friendship with God, and looked for a certain 
good under certain conditions, has been already shown. 
That this state can sano sensu^ be called a covenant, is not 
doubted. Still toe must hold that in the Scriptures this des- 
ignation does not clearly aj)J>ear^ unless^ perhaps^ you choose 
to ajpjply Ilosea vi. 7 to this relation rather than to the Mosaic 
history / so that the Bible inahes no mention of the covenant : 
on the contrary, this notion is clearly presented to us, that 
God^ as absolute and natural Lord of man, has treated him 
as a subject^ of whose affection and obedience he desired to 
make trial. And it really seems that the notion of a cove- 
nant pertains to the economy of grace ; both Scripture and 
reason favoring this vieiv.^^ It is stated in the note, that 
the opposition to this notion by Episcopius and other Ar- 
minians, in which they were followed by Socinians, stimu- 
lated Calvinistic theologians to espouse and defend it with 
more zeal."^ 

These last observations are deserving of especial notice. 
It would appear that the idea of the covenant of works was 
carried back to the Adamic constitution from the analogy of 
the covenant of grace, with which theologians were familiar ; 

* Yitringa, Doctrina Christ. Belig., etc., vol. ii., p. 241. 



378 THE AUGTJSTmiAK AND THE FEDERAL 

and the opposition of Arminians and Socinians tended to 
confirm and spread the innovation. 

The federal system was considered, at the outset, a soften- 
ing of Calvinism. Predestination was mitigated, in appear- 
ance at least, by this introduction of juridical considerations. 
Theology seemed to take on a more biblical cast. Hence the 
federal method was disliked by the Protestant schoolmen, as 
they were called ; that class of Cah^inistic wiiters in whose 
hands theology, especially after the rise of the Arminian 
controversy, ran out into endless hair-splitting, according 
to a dry and rigid scheme, predestination being the central 
idea. 

But what is the covenant with Adam, as distinguished 
from the law of nature ? What is the nature of this posi- 
tive constitution ? The covenant is, in its essence, 2i promise 
— a promise of such blessings, on the condition of obedience, 
as the rational creature is not entitled to by the law of na- 
ture. It is a gracious act on the part of God ; an act of 
condescension. He couples with obedience a reward wholly 
disproportionate to the creature's deserts — namely, eternal 
life. In this general definition all are agreed. In regard to 
more specific points in the definition, theologians vary fi'om 
one another. The attaching of the promise to a Irief term 
of obedience, for example, is sometimes regarded as one ele- 
ment in the covenant. But if we seek for the precise differ- 
ence between the provisions of the covenant and the princi- 
ples of natural and universal justice, which were of binding 
force, independently of it, we find this difference to consist 
in the magnitude of the promise and in the appointing of a 
special test of obedience. Inasmuch, however, as this spe- 
cial test was a revealed law, and might have been laid upon 
Adam, had there been no covenant, the substance of this 
positive constitution lies in the gracious promise that is con- 
nected by the Creator with the law. 

Thus it will be seen that the covenant does not of neces- 
sity affect the substance of the Augustinian doctrine at aU. 



THEORIES OF OKIGINAL SIN COMPARED. 379 

The tlieoiy of the covenant may be accepted at the same 
time that the posterity of Adam are held to be really par- 
takers in his sin and guilt. The breach of the law and the 
breach of the covenant were one and the same act. If the 
posterity of Adam really broke the law in Adam, they broke 
the covenant also. Even on the supposition that they took 
part in the transgression of the law, and did not take part in 
the violation of the covenant, still Adam brings on them no 
condemnation which they do not themselves deserve by sin- 
ning in him ; they merely lose blessings to which they have, 
and could have, no title on the foundation of natural law. 
I lay a command upon a child. It is a reasonable command, 
and by the law of nature, I have a right to impose it ; and I 
have a right to affix a certain punishment to disobedience. 
But I freely promise that in case he obeys I will grant to 
him, and to his brothers also, some high and undeserved 
privilege. I^ow suppose him to disobey. They, as well as 
he, lose something ; but they lose nothing which the law of 
nature gave them. Suppose them, in some way, to partici- 
pate in his disobedience ; they, too, justly incur the positive 
penalty prescribed by the law, in addition to the negative 
forfeiture through his breach of the covenant. They suffer 
no greater penalty than they really deserve ; they lose a 
greater reward than obedience would have given them a 
title to, apart from a special, gratuitous promise. 

The mistake of the modern defenders of imputation is in 
ignoring and denying the capital fact of a true and real 
PARTICIPATION IN Adam's SIN, whicli Still formed the ground- 
work of the doctrine of original sin long after the federal 
theory came into vogue. They mistake history likewise, by 
ascribing their own purely federal view to the great body of 
Calvinistic theologians in the seventeenth century, who were 
Augustinians as well as federalists, holding to the second type 
of doctrine which we mentioned in the beginning — the Au- 
gustino-federal. 

There is another historical error of a kindred nature. 



380 THE AUGUSTINIAN AKD THE FEDERAL 

which pervades the Princeton discussions of original sin. 
These assume that the old Calvinists held to the immediate 
or antecedent imputation of the first sin — that is, to the 
condemnation of men for it, independently of their native 
depravity. But with the exception of certain supralapsa- 
rians, the Calvinistic view was, that the ascription to men 
of the first sin, and the ascription to them of native, sinful 
corruption, are each conditional to the other. The first 
could not take place without the second, as an inseparable 
part or accompaniment ; and the order in which the two 
occur, is indifferent, as far as orthodoxy was concerned. 
This has been conclusively proved, and the error above 
stated has been fully exposed, in a series of learned articles, 
from the pen of R. W. Landis, D.D., which were published 
in The Danville Review. * As we do not care to do 
what has been so well done alreadv, we shall have less to 
say here on this particular point. But having had occa- 
sion, before and since the appearance of these Articles, to 
traverse a great portion of the same ground, we can ,give 
an intelligent assent to this main position of the learned 
author. 

The proposition which we are now concerned to main- 
tain, is that in the prevailing theology of the seventeenth, 
as well as the sixteenth century, even after the covenant 
theory was adopted, the doctrine of participation in the 
first sin — the old groimdwork of Augustinism — was still 
cherished. 

(1.) The most approved orthodox theologians of that age 
confirm this statement. From a throng of witnesses we se- 
lect one, for the reason that he is an acknowledged repre- 
sentative of the strict Calvinism of his times. The follow- 
ing passages are from John Owen : 

Of original sin, he says " that it is an inherent sin and 
pollution of nature, having a proper guilt of its own, mak- 

* In the Numbers from September, 1861, to December, 1862, inclusive. 



THEORIES OF OPwIGINAL SIN COMPARED. 381 

ing US responsible to the wrath of God, and not a bare im- 
putation of another's fault to us, his posterity." * Answer- 
ing the objection that the first sin isnot ours, is not our vol- 
untary act, he refers to the covenant, but adds : 

" That Adam, being- the root and head of all human kind, and we all 
branches from that root, all parts of that body whereof he was the head, 
his will may be said to be ours. We were then all that one man,f we 
were all in him, and had no other will but his ; so that though that be 
extrinsical unto us, considered as particular persons, yet it is intrinsical, 
as we are all parts of one common nature. As in him we sinned, so in him 
we had a will of sinning.:}: Original sin is a defect of nature, and not of 
this or that particular person." " It is hereditary, natural, and no way 
involuntary, or put into us against our wills. It possesseth our wills, 
and inclines us to voluntary sins." § " If God should impute the sin of 
Adam unto us, and therein pronounce us obnoxious to the curse deserved 
by it — if we have a pure, sinless, unspotted nature — even this could 
scarce be reconciled with that rule of his proceeding in justice with the 
sons of men, ' The soul that sinneth, it shall die ; ' which clearly grant- 
eth impunity to all not tainted with sin. Sin and punishment, though 
they are sometimes separated by his mercy, pardoning the one, and so 
not inflicting the other, yet never by his justice, inflicting the latter where 
the former is not. Sin imputed, by itself alone, without an inherent guilt, 
was never punished in any but Christ. The unsearchableness of God's 
love and justice, in laying the iniquity of us all upon him who had no 
Bin, is an exception from that general rule he walketh by in his dealing 
with the posterity of Adam." I The grounds of the imputation of 
Adam's sin to us are : "1. As we were then in him and parts of him ; 2. 
As he sustained the place of our whole nature in the covenant God made 
with him ; both which, even according to the exigence of God's justice, 
require that his transgression be also accounted ours." 1" " There is none 
damned but for his own sin. When divines affirm that by Adam's sin we 
are guilty of damnation, they do not mean that any are actually damned 
for this particular fact, but that by his sin, and our sinning in him, by 
God's most just ordination, we have contracted that exceeding pravity 
and sinfulness of nature which deserveth the curse of God and eternal 
damnation." "The soul then that is guilty shall die, and that for its 
own guilt. If God should condemn us for original sin only, it were not 
by reason of the imputation of Adam's fault, but of the iniquity of that 

* "Display of Arminianism," Works, x., 70. 

f ** Omnes eramus unus ille homo." — Aug. % Ihid., p. 73. 

§ Ibid., p. 73. I Ibid., p. 74. t Ibid., p. 75. 



382 THE AUGUSTINIAN AND THE EEDEEAL 

portion hy nature^ in icJdch we are proprietaries.'''' * " The sin of Adam 
holds such relation to sinners, proceeding from him by natural propaga- 
tion, as the righteousness of Christ doth unto them who are born again of 
him by spiritual regeneration. But we are truly, intrinsically and inher- 
ently sanctified by the Spirit and. grace of Christ ; and, therefore, there 
is no reason why, being so often in this chapter (Rom. v.) called sinners, 
because of this original sin, we should cast it off, as if it were concerned 
only by an external denomination, for the right institution of the com- 
parison and its analogy quite overthrows the solitary imputation." f 

One of tlie great arguments of the defenders of immedi- 
ate or antecedent imputation in onr day is founded on tlie 
analogy of the imputation of our sias to Christ, and espe- 
cially of his righteousness to us. But Owen, like the old 
Calvinists generally, supralapsarian speculatists being ex- 
cepted, makes a marked distinction between these various 
instances of imputation. This is evident fi*om two of the 
passages quoted above. 

In his work on justification, also, he says : 

' ' None ever dreamed of a transfusion or propagation of sin from us to 
Christ, such as there was from Adam to us. For Adam was a common per- 
son to us, we are not so to Christ ; yea, he is not so to us ; and the imputa- 
tion of our sins to him, is a singular act of divine dispensation, which no 
evil consequences can ensue upon, " " There is a great difference between 
the imputation of the righteousness of Christ to us, and the imputation 
of our sins to Christ ; so that he cannot in the same manner be said to 
be made a sinner by the one, as we are made righteous by the other. 
For our sin was imputed to Christ, only as he was our surety for a time, 
to this end, that he might take it away, destroy it and abolish it. It was 
never imputed to him, so as to make any alteration absolutely in his per- 
sonal state and condition. But his righteousness is imputed to us, to 
abide with us, to be ours always, and to make a total change in our state 
and condition as to our relation to God," etc.:}: 

The combination of the Augustinian and federal theories, 
which is manifest in the citations fi'om Owen, appears in the 
creeds of the Westminster Assembly. In the Confession, 
it is said of Adam and Eve — 

* "Omnes eramus unus ille homo." — Aug., p. 80. f Ibid., p. 71. 

X The Doctrine of Justification, etc. (Philadelphia ed.), p. 227. 



THEOEIES OF ORIGINAL SIN COMPARED. 383 

" They being the root of all mankind, the guilt of his sin was imputed, 
and the same death in sin and corrupted nature conveyed to all their 
posterity, descending from them by ordinary generation." 

In the larger Catechism, we read — 

" The covenant being made with Adam as a public person, not for him- 
self only, but for his posterity, all mankind descending from him by ordi- 
nary generation sinned in him and fell with him in that first transgres- 
sion." 

The proof -texts which were attached to these statements, 
and were printed with the emphatic portions in italics, show 
most clearly that the Augustinian conception was side by 
side with the Federal, in the minds of the framers of these 
creeds. What they meant to teach is clearly set forth in 
the Brief Sum of Christian Doctrine^ which was issued 
by the authority of the Assembly. 

" God in six days made all things of nothing, very good in their own 
kind, in special he made all the angels holy ; and made our first parents, 
Adam and Eve, the root of mankind, both upright and able to keep the 
law within their heart ; which law they were naturally bound to obey, 
under pain of death ; but God M^as not bound to reward their service, till 
he entered into a covenant or contract with them, and their posterity in 
them, to give them eternal life upon condition of perfect personal obedi- 
ence, without threatening death, in case they should fail. 

" Both angels and men were subject to the change of their own free- 
will, as experience proved, God having reserved to himself the incommu- 
nicable property of being naturally unchangeable. For many angels, of 
their own accord, fell by sin from their first estate, and became devils. 
Our first parents being enticed by Satan, one of these devils, speaking in 
a serpent, did break the covenant of works, in eating the forbidden fruit, 
whereby they and their posterity, being in their loins, as branches in the 
root, and comprehended in the same covenant with them, became not only 
liable to eternal death, but also lost all ability of will to please God ; yea, 
did become by nature enemies to God, and to all spiritual good ; and in- 
clined to evil continually. This is our original sin, the bitter root of all 
our actual transgressions in thought, word, and deed.'" * 

Plainly we have here the old doctrine of a nature, cor- 
rupted in Adam, and as such, transmitted to his posterity ; 

* Quoted by Dr. Baird, Elohim Revealed, p. 41<. 



384: THE AUGUSTINIAN AND THE FEDERAL 

the covenant idea being superadded, but not yet supplanting 
the Augustinian. Baxter, Goodwin, and most of the con- 
temporary Calvinistic divines, are full and explicit in the in- 
culcation of this same doctrine. 

(2.) The Placsean controversy and the publications conse- 
quent upon it, afford decisive proof of our position that the 
Augustinian idea of participation in the first sin prevailed 
among Calvinistic writers long after the acceptance of the 
covenant theory. The French school of Saumur, one of the 
Protestant academies of theology, had for its professors, 
after the year 1633, three men of marked ability and erudi- 
tion, Louis Capellus (Cappel), Moses Amyraldus (Amyraut), 
and Joshua Placseus (La Place). Before them, John Cam- 
eron, a Scotchman by birth, had produced some commotion 
by his doctrine in regard to the operation of grace, which 
was that the spirit renews the soul, not by acting on the will 
directly, but rather by an enlightening influence on the in- 
tellect. This was broached partly for the sake of parrying 
Catholic objections to the Calvinistic doctrine of predestina- 
tion and election. Cameron's theory did not mitigate this 
doctrine in the slightest degree, as was admitted so soon as 
his theory was understood. His substantial orthodoxy was 
allowed by those who withheld their sanction from the 
theory. The most eminent of his pupils was Amyraut. 
He boldly propounded the doctrine of hypothetical, univer- 
sal grace, as it was called, which was really the doctrine of 
universal atonement. He maintained that there is in God, 
in some proper sense, a will or desire (velleitas, affectus) that 
all should repent and be saved. The decree of election fol- 
lows in the order of nature the decree providing the atone- 
ment. The attempt was made in two national synods to 
procure a condemnation of his doctrine, but in both cases it 
failed. He successfully defended himself, and proved that 
his doctrine was not inconsistent with the creed of the 
Synod of Dort. Cappel was a biblical scholar, and by his 
critical opinions in this department caused a commotion 



THEORIES OF ORIGINAL SIN COMPARED. 385 

only less than that excited by his colleague. He taught 
that the vowel pointing of the Hebrew text of the Old Tes- 
tament is an invention later than the Christian era, and 
clothed with no infallible authority ; and that the masoretic 
text of the Ancient Scriptures is open to amendment from 
the comparison of manuscripts and versions. Placaeus is 
the one of these three disturbers of theological quiet, with 
whom we have to do at present. He was understood to 
deny that the first sin of Adam is imputed to his posterity, 
and to resolve original sin into mere hereditary depravity. 
At the Synod of Charenton, in 164:4:-5, Garrisolius (Garri- 
sole), the head of the rival school of Montauban, presided. 
In no small degree, through his influence, there was carried 
through the synod a condemnation of the opinion attributed 
to Placaeus, although his name was not mentioned. This 
opinion was pronounced an error, and was declared to in- 
volve in peril the doctrine of inherent sin itself, since apart 
from the imputation of the first transgression, this doctrine 
rests on no secure foundation. Placaeus did not consider 
himself to be at all touched by the decree of Charenton. 
He explained afterwards that he did not deny the imputa- 
tion of Adam's sin ; but only that this imputation is inde- 
pendent of, and prior to, inherent depravity. He distin- 
guished between mediate and immediate or antecedent im- 
putation. The former imputes Adam's sin not directly, but 
mediately — on the ground of our inherent depravity, w^hich 
is its first fruit and effect. This depravity is first imputed 
to us, and then the sin from which it comes. When he 
made this explanation, Drelincourt, the distinguished Pastor 
of Paris, who had been a member of the synod and on the 
committee that drafted the decree, wrote to Placseus an ex- 
pression of his satisfaction and confidence, saying that they 
had never intended to condemn the doctrine thus explained. 
That the doctrine of Placseus involved no serious departure 
from the current orthodoxy, was likewise conceded by other 
prominent theologians who at first arrayed themselves 
17 



386 THE AIJGTTSTINIAN AND THE FEDEEAL 

against him. While the matter was in agitation, and be- 
fore Placsens had corrected what he deemed a grave misap- 
prehension of his views, Andrew Rivet, a Frenchman hj 
birth, but then a professor in Holland, prepared, for the 
purpose of counteracting the supposed error of Placseus, a 
copious collection of testimonies, on the subject of imputa- 
tion. It is a collection of citations fi^om standard creeds 
and numerous orthodox theologians. His prime end, as we 
have said, is to make it manifest by an appeal to authorities, 
that besides native, inherent depravity, original sin involves 
the imputation of the first transgression. These testimonies 
are very interesting and important for the light which they 
throw on the particular questions which we are here consid- 
ering. In former articles in the Princeton Hemew, the mis- 
take has been made of supposing that the design of Kivet 
was to assert the doctrine of antecedent or immediate impu- 
tation — that is to say, to maintain that Adam's sin is im- 
puted to us and made a ground of condemnation prior to, 
and irrespectively of, native corruption. This was no part 
of his plan. If it had been, his testimonies would have 
overthrown himself. For, as we have already remarked, if 
we count out a handful of supralapsarians, the general 
theory was that the imputation of Adam's sin and native de- 
pravity are inseparable, so that the one cannot exist without 
the other. Rivet is simply opposing the theory that original 
sin comprises no element but native depravity. Whoever 
held to a participation in Adam's sin, such as involves a 
legal responsibility for it, might put the elements of the doc- 
trine in whatever order he saw fit. 

Here let us explain what we consider the real philosophy 
of imputation, as the subject was generally viewed. Some- 
times Adam's actual sin was said to be truly and really ours ; 
but this was not the common representation. That sin was 
the act of another : it is imputed to us, as far as its guilt 
and legal responsibility are concerned, because we were all 
jpa/rticvpes criminis. In a strict philosophical view, partici- 



THEORIES OF ORIGINAL SIN COMPARED. 387 

pation is the first fact in order, and the first thing to be 
proved. Take an illustration. A. B. is charged with a 
crime. Three other persons are accused of being accom- 
plices. Tliey did not do the deed — with their own hands 
fire the dwelling or commit the act of homicide. But thej 
are chai'ged with being participants, in the legal idea of the 
term, and therefore partakers of the guilt of the principal 
and liable to the same penalty. His act is imputed to them 
by the law. But before this is possible, \\\Qfact of partici- 
pation must first be established ; for on this fact their legal 
responsibility for the criminal act depends. E^ow extend 
the illustration and suppose that this deed was the transgres- 
sor's first criminal act, and as such brought on him a corrupt 
character, or engendered, as it inevitably must, a corrupt 
principle. A principle of the same sort is found to have 
simultaneously arisen in the hearts of those whom we have 
spoken of as accomplices. But as they in their proper per- 
sons have done no criminal act, can this principle, in their 
case, be regarded as truly and properly sinful ? !Not unless 
they can be connected with the original act of wrong-doing, 
as accomplices or participants. Now it will be found that 
Rivet and his witnesses, when they insist on the imputation 
of the first sin, are contending against the idea that mere 
native corruption is the whole of original sin ; just as Cal- 
vin and many others deny that imputation is the whole. 
Both belong inseparably together. One may give the logi- 
cal priority to inherent depravity, provided he includes 
under it participation in the first sin, on which imputation 
ultimately rests ; and another may make imputation first, it 
being understood that participation is the condition of it. 
The fact of _^;<2^/'^^c^^a^5^6>7^, by which the first act is both per- 
sonal and generic, and therefore ours in one sense, and not 
ours in another, is the point of coincidence between both 
views. The circumstance that participation is sometimes 
implied, rather than expressed, both by those who give the 
precedence to imputation, and those who give the precedence 



388 THE AUGUSTINIAN AND THE FEDERAL 

to native corruption, occasioned some misunderstanding be- 
tween them, and has been since a fruitful source of misun- 
derstanding to their interpreters. But, as we have ah*eady 
observed, if we except a few supralapsarians, the fact of a 
true and real, though not personal, participation in the first 
sin, is everywhere held. Not unfrequently the true philo- 
sophical order, with participation in its proper place, is f oimd 
in the WTiters quoted by Rivet. We may cite Parens as an 
example : 

' ' Original sin, as well in Adam as in his posterity, includes these three 
deadly evils, actual iniquity (culpam), legal guilt (reatum) or the penalty 
of death, and habitual depravity or deformity. These concur in connec- 
tion with the first sin, simultaneously in the parent and posterity : with 
this difference only, that Adam was the principal sinning agent, admitting 
iniquity, meriting guilt, casting away the image of God, and depraving 
himself. All these things belong to his posterity by participation, impu- 
tation, and generation from a sinful parent. Thus it is a futile dispute 
of sophists, whether it was only the first iniquity (culpa) or only guilt, or 
only disorder, pollution or native vitiosity. For it is all these. Giving a 
broad definition, you may say it is the fall and disobedience of the first 
parents, and in them of the whole human race, in which all alike (pariter), 
the image of God being cast away, depraved their nature, were made ene- 
mies of God, and contracted the guilt of temporal and eternal death, un- 
less deliverance and reconciliation take place by the Son of God, the 
Mediator." " All are dead by the offence of one man. Therefore, the 
offence was the offence of all, but by participation and imputation." * 

Statements parallel with this of Parous might be quoted 
in abundance, f 

* Riveti Opera, t. iii. , 319. 
f That participation is an essential element in original sin, may be seen 
especially by reference to the passages, in Rivet, from Musculus, Viretus, 
Bucanus, Polanus, Chamierus, Mestrezatius, Whittaker (Professor at 
Cambridge), Davenant, Ames, Walasns, Junius, Frisius, Hommius — who 
says, " Peccatum Adami non est nobis omnino alienum, sed est proprium 
cujusque, quod propter hanc naturae communionem singulis hominibus 
non tantum imputatur, sed a singulis etiam est perpetratum " — Lauren- 
tius, Zanchius, Piscator, Textor, Crocius, Bucer, Chemnitz (the author 
of the Examen. Cone, Trid ). Compare the two Dissertations on Original 
Sin by Rivet himself, Disput. 11. (t. iii., p. 747), and the Theses Theolog. 



THEOKIES OF ORIGINAL SIN COMPARED. 389 

What has been said will prepare us to comprehend the 
Plac£ean controversy. Having made a careful examination 
of the writings of Placaeus, we feel competent to state what 
his views really were. His great aim was to confute the 
doctrine of immediate or antecedent imputation. He was at 
first understood to deny participation, but this misunder- 
standing, as was said above, he corrected. His opinions are 
expressed, prior to the Synod of Charenton, in the Theses 
Salmurenses.^ God, he says, counts no man a sinner who 
is not truly so. Either Adam's actual sin is imputed to us, 
or our original, inherent depravity. The former cannot be 
proved from the Bible. We sinned in Adam, as we died in 
him. Human nature was in Adam, generically the same as 
in us, but numerically distinct from human nature in us con- 
sidered as persons. Hence our sin is the same generically, 
but not numerically with his. If he was appointed to obey 
or disobey instead of us, why not to be punished instead of 
us, also ? If his first actual sin was ours, why not his act of 
generating Cain or Seth ? The true doctrine is that of 
seminal corruption. The sensitive soul — the animal soul — 
is produced from the parent; the intellectual or rational 
soul is directly created. Tlie soul on entering the corrupted 
physical nature, is not passively corrupted, but becomes cor- 
rupt actively, accommodating itself in character to the other 
part of human nature ; as water, by an appetency of its 
own, takes the form of the bowl into w^hicli it is poured. 

In the copious treatise on Imputation, which he wrote 
aftei' the action of the synod, he develops his system with 
great fulness and likewise with great ability.f The report 



de pec. orig. (t. iii., p. 824). In the former, sections x. — xvi. (inclusive) 
and xxiv. deserve particular attention ; in the latter, sections 5, 20, 23, 
25, 27, 28, 29, 33, 34, 42. 

* Syntagma Thes. Theolog. in Acad. Salm., etc. Edit. Secunda., Pt, i., 
205 seq. 

f Placasi, Opera Omnia : Edito novissima : Franequer. De Imp. primi 
pec. AdamiBispuL, etc, Tom i., p. 161 seq. 



390 THE AUGUSTINIAN AND THE FEDERAL 

that his doctrine had been condemned by the synod, he 
says, had been eagerly caught np by those unfriendly to 
Saumnr. "^ But the terms of their decree did not touch him. 
The decree did not condemn those who restrict original sin 
to inherent depravity, but those who so restrict it to inherent 
depravity as to deny the unputation of Adam's first sin. f 
This he does not deny. He holds to imputation, but to 
mediate, not immediate imputation.^ Adam's first actual 
sin is imputed to us in the sense that it is the cause of our 
guilt by causing our depravity, and further as our inherent 
sin involves and implies a consent to his first transgression.§ 
In defence of the propriety of using the term " imputation " 
to designate this view, he appeals to Romans ii. 27: "If 
the uncircumcision keep the righteousness of the law, shall 
not his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision." || He 
holds that we participate in Adam's sin, and habitually con- 
sent thereto at the outset of our personal life. It may be 
truly said that we were in the loins of Adam, and sinned in 
him and with him.^" The sin of Adam is communicated to 
us by propagation. The corruption that followed Adam's 
first actual sin is imputed to us as passing over to us — idem 
specie — -Adam communicating at once sin and nature. "^"^ He 
appeals to Calvin, to Gualter, to Chamier, to Eivet, in sup- 
port of his doctrine as to the difference in the mode of the 
imputation of Adam's sin and Christ's righteousness.ff 
The analogy of Christ's relation to us proves nothing in favor 
of immediate imputation. Our sins are not imputed to 
Christ as their author, but as a surety ; but Adam's sin is 
imputed to us as its authors. The one is of grace, the 
other on the ground of desert. 1^ But our own faith is the 
necessary condition o£ justification, just as our intermediate 
depravity is the necessary prerequisite of the imputation ,of 

* De Imp. 'primipec. Adami Disput., etc. Tom. i., p. 162. 

t Ibid., p. 176. I Ibid., p. 173. § Ibid. , pp. 179, 284, 286. 

II Ibid., p. 284. ^ Ibid., p. 188. ** Ibid., p. 198. 

ft Ibid., pp. 195, 198, 201, 206. tt Ibid., p. 185. 



THEORIES OF ORIGINAL SIN COMPARED. 391 

Adam's sin. He contends that his antagonist, Garrisole, ad- 
mits everything that is essential to the Placaean doctrine. 
For he allows that the guilt of Adam's first sin and of inher- 
ent depravity are one and the same guilt. There are not 
two guilts, or guiltinesses, but only one. 

Placseus claimed that his conception of the subject is iden- 
tical with that of Calvin. He could appropriate the lan- 
guage of Calvin in the Institutes and in the Commentary on 
the Epistle to the Romans, as a faithful description of his 
doctrine. It appeared at first to the opponents of Placseus, 
as we have more than once remarked, that he had dropped 
the idea of participation in the first sin ; but this was simply 
because he dwelt so much on seminal corruption and the law 
of propagation, according to which depravity passes from 
father to son. But Anselm and Calvin might have been at- 
tacked with as much justice as Placseus. This attack on 
Placseus is an indication that the doctrine of original sin was 
in danger of being removed from its Augustinian foundation. 

One of the most active opponents of the doctrines of the 
Saumur professors was Francis Turretine. Though he had 
studied at Saumur as well as at Paris, he allied himself with 
the more rigid theologians of Montauban. He became the 
head of a party at Geneva, which labored to procure the con- 
demnation of the Saumur views by the Swiss Church. Op- 
posed to this party at Geneva were Mestrezat and Louis 
Tronchin, colleagues of Turretine, and other theologians of a 
liberal and tolerant spirit. Turretine and his party at length 
effected a partial success by securing the promulgation and 
partial enforcement, for a time, in Switzerland, of the Formu- 
la Consensus Helvetica^ which they took the lead in framing. 
They were not deterred from this step by the remonstrance 
of eminent ministers of foreign churches, among whom were 
the Paris pastors, the younger Daille, and the famous Claude, 
together with the distinguished theologian of Holland, J. R. 
Wetstein. Turretine and the party to which he belonged 
professed to regard with charity and toleration the ministers 



392 THE AUGUSTINIAN AND THE FEDERAL 

who differed from tliem on the points of theology to which 
the Consensus relates ; they were only anxious to keep the 
Swiss Church free from erroneous teaching. Their creed is 
levelled at the peculiar doctrines of each of the three Saumur 
professors. Against Cappel, they go so far as to assert the 
inspiration of the Hebrew vowel points in the Old Testament, 
and to condemn, also, his critical views respecting the Hebrew 
text — thus giving their solemn sanction to the Buxtorlian 
grammar and criticism ! Having demolished Capellus, the 
Consensus condemns Amyraldism — universal atonement and 
the doctrine that God desires the salvation of all. Amyraut's 
doctrine of universal grace is carefully defined and denounced. 
Then the Placsean doctrine, or the doctrine which Turretine 
persisted in ascribing to Placseus, is put under the ban. The 
Consensus never acquired authority outside of Switzerland. 
Within about fifty years it was abrogated. One of the strong- 
est advocates of this last measure was Turretine's own son, 
Alphonso Turretine, who was as zealous in opposing as his 
father had been in advocating it,'^ If there was ever a creed 
which deserves to be called the manifesto of a theological 
party, rather than a confession of faith on the part of the 
church, the Formula Consensus is that one. And yet we have 
seen this partisan document, with its not only verbal but lit- 
eral inspiration, according i6 the grammar of Buxtorf, quoted 
side by side with passages from the Augsburg Confession 
and the Ileidelherg Catechism ! 

* In a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the younger Turretine 
says that the Consensus would exclude from the ministry many excellent 
ministers of God ; almost all the doctors of the first four centuries and a 
great number of ages following ; almost all of the Reformers, a great part 
of the reformed theologians of France, and the ablest among them ; a 
great portion of the G-erman theologians, and almost all the theologians 
of the English church. 

This letter may be read in the Supplement to Bayle's Dictionary by 
Chauseppie — Art. "Louis Tronchin," Note C. The earlier letter of F. 
Turretine to Claude, on the other side, is in curious contrast with the sen- 
timents of his son. This may also be read in Chauseppie. 



THEORIES OF ORIGIN2VL SIN COMPARED. 393 

But even tlie Formula Consensus Helvetica associates with 
the theory of the covenant that of a real participation in the 
first sin. It affirms that prior to actual sin, man is exposed 
to the divine wrath for a double reason, " first, on account of 
the TrapaTTTCD/ia and disobedience which he committed in the 
loins of Adam ; then bj reason of the consequent hereditary 
corruption, introduced at his very conception, by which his 
whole nature is depraved and spiritually dead." 

If we turn to the Institutes of Turretine, which was pub- 
lished in the last quarter of the seventeenth century, and 
wlien the antagonism to Placseus had produced its full effect 
in determining the form of theology on this subject, we see, 
indeed, vestiges of the genuine Augustinian doctrine, but we 
see also that this is well-nigh supplanted. Turretine leans 
strongly to the supralapsarian philosophy, which explains 
moral phenomena by reference to the will of God, as the ul- 
timate foundation, rather than his immutable justice. The 
doctrine of immediate or antecedent imputation coheres with 
that system, and was espoused by its advocates. In their 
view, it is sufficient that God determines to consider one 
guilty if another sins. His determination to establish such a 
constitution makes it just. There is one word in Turretine's 
discussion of imputation which is quite significant as mark- 
ing the doctrinal transition which we are attempting to 
sketch. He founds imputation on our natural union with 
Adam, as the father and root of the race, and on the federal 
union with him, our appointed representative. " The foun- 
dation, therefore, of imputation is not only the natural union 
which comes in between us and Adam — otherwise all his sins 
would have to be imputed to us, but chiefly the moral and 
federal^ by which God framed a covenant with him as our 
head." * It is chiefly — ^^^rcBci^ue " — the covenant relation 
on which the justice and propriety of imputation are made 
to rest. At the same time there are passages in this author 

* Institutes^ P. I. Loc. IX., Q. IX., xi. 

17* 



394: THE AUGUSTINIAN AND THE FEDERAL 

which go beyond the more modern theory of immediate im- 
putation and in the direction of Augustinism. He declares, 
in arguing against Placseus, that the orthodox doctrine holds 
to both sorts of imputation, immediate and mediate ; imply- 
ing that they are inseparable. He says : "In the propaga- 
tion of sin, the accident does not pass from subject to sub- 
ject " — that is, sin does not go from person to person — " be- 
cause the immediate subject of sin is not the person, but 
human nature, vitiated by the actual transgression of the 
person, which being communicated to the posterity of Adam, 
this inherent corruption is communicated in it. As, there- 
fore, in Adam, person infected nature, so, in his posterity, 
nature infects person." '^ Sin is transmitted — handed down. 
But sin is not a substance, it is an accident. Plence it inheres 
in something. It inheres not in the person, but in the nature^ 
which being corrupted in Adam, passes down to his descend- 
ants. Alluding to Hebrews vii. 9 — " Levi, also, who receiv- 
eth tithes, paid tithes in Abraham " — Turretine denies that 
it is to be figuratively taken. It is to be taken in the proper 
sense. Abraham in that solemn action sustained the person 
of Levi or of the Aaronic sacerdotal order that was to spring 
from him ; and this he did properly and truly, though his 
other relations — his faith, for example — were merely per- 
sonal, f 

Apart from the supposed scriptural foundation for the 
theory of the covenant, it is easy to account for the spread 
of it, and for its displacement of the Augustinian idea. The 
old difficulty growing out of the origin of souls by separate 
acts of creation, which was the accepted hypothesis among 
Calvinists, was felt with ever-increasing force. In particu- 
lar, the covenant theory suggested a plausible mode of meet- 
ing two objections to the doctrine of original sin in its ancient 
form. One thing which had not been satisfactorily explained 
was the non-imputation of other sins of Adam, besides the 

* Institutes, P. L, Loc. IX., Q. X., xxii. f Ibid., Q. IX., xxv. 



THEORIES OF ORIGINAL SIN COMPARED. 395 

first, not to speak of all his other actions, to his posterity. K 
we participated responsibly in "the first sin, why not in his 
subsequent acts also ? The other fact that demanded expla- 
nation was the non-imputation of the sins of nearer ances- 
tors, even of all mankind, to each individual. The theory 
of a common nature, when taken as a sufiicient explication 
of the subject, was attended with these difficulties. The 
solution had been commonly sought in the hypothesis that 
all acts of Adam subsequent to the first, as well as the acts 
of nearer kindred, are phenomenal, personal. That act alone 
corrupted the nature. But the covenant, it was thought, 
furnished an easier and better answer. The covenant, by its 
terms, turned upon the conduct of Adam for a limited pe- 
riod, and one act of sin on the part of Adam forfeited all its 
privileges and brought upon mankind the judicial forfeiture. 
It is true that the difficulty remained until the fundamental 
principle of Augustine was wholly given up. How can man- 
kind, it might still be asked, participate in the first act alone ? 
For it was still the prevailing view, throughout the seven- 
teenth century, among adherents of the covenant theology, 
with the exception of supralapsarians, that in that first sin 
there was a true and proper participation. It seems to have 
been long felt by theologians that the covenant would not 
answer of itself, without the doctrine of real participation, in 
confronting objections to imputation and native depravity ; 
and yet the two props were hardly congruous with one an- 
other. When the justice of imputation on the ground of a 
federal relation was called in question, they fell back on the 
theory of participation ; but when asked why all the actions 
of Adam are not imputed to us, they pleaded the covenant. 
The process of supplanting the Augustinian theory was 
consummated in the eighteenth century. But Calvinistic 
theology in England, having nothing but the covenant to 
rest upon, found itself in the hapless plight which is de- 
scribed by the younger Edwards in his account of the state 
of things when his father began his labors. To illustrate 



396 THE AUGUSTINIAN AND THE FEDERAL 

the half-hearted tone and helpless situation of the represen- 
tatives of Calvinistic doctrine, we have only to refer to 
three of the most eonspicuons of them, Ridgelej, Dodd- 
ridge, and Watts. Ridgeley says that Adam's sin is onrs 
only in a forensic sense.* He considers how the imputa- 
tion of it can be justified. 1. It is said : " If Adam had 
not fallen, we should be content with the arrangement." 
This, replies Ridgeley, is not a sufficient answer. 2. If his 
posterity had existed, the law of nature would have directed 
them to choose Adam for their representative, he being the 
common father. This answer, says Eidgeley, "bids fairer 
to remove the difficulty," but does not wholly remove it. 
3. God chose Adam to be our representative, and we ought 
to acquiesce. But this, Ridgeley replies, will not satisfy the 
objector ; it puts the sovereignty of God, he will say, against 
his other perfections. Hidgeley comes to the conclusion 
that the guilt of men for Adam's sin cannot be so great as 
the guilt we contract by actual sins.f Here he takes up an 
opinion which the schoolmen and later Roman Catholics 
had avowed, but which the old Protestant theology had 
looked upon with disfavor. The punishment of infants, 
Ridgeley thinks, will be the mildest of any. Accusations 
of conscience will not belong to those who have no sin save 
original sin. How we can be properly sinful at birth is the 
point which Ridgeley, even with the help of the covenant, 
is obviously puzzled to explain. 

According to Doddridge, men are born with evil propen- 
sities ; but the difficulty of supposing this " is consideraUy 
lessened " if we suppose that things are so constituted upon 
the whole as that a man is not necessarily impelled to any 
actions which shall end in his final destruction." :j: What re- 
mains of the difficulty, says Doddridge, is the same under 
other schemes as under the scheme of Christianity. The 



* These citations are from the Am. ed. of Ridgeley's System, vol. i. 
flbid., p. 141. X Doddridge's Lectures, Prop. 133, SchoL 3. 



THEORIES OF ORIGINAL SIN COMPARED. 397 

sin of Adam is, " in some degree," imputed to his poster- 
ity.* Tlie covenant with Adam is, " in some measure," for 
his posterity. f ''^ It may seem prohahle^^ that the posterity 
of Adam would have been advantaged by his obedience, 
but to what extent we cannot say.:}: One rational creature, 
we may be certain, will not be made finally and eternally 
miserable for the sin of another. What the state of those 
who die in infancy is, we know not. 

Watts affirms that the fact of infants being the descend- 
ants of Adam will not account for their miseries and their 
death. We must also suppose that he is our legal represen- 
tative. Of this theory of representation. Watts naively ob- 
serves ; " I must confess I am not fond of such a scheme or 
hypothesis." "No! I would gladly renounce it," "if I 
could find any other way " to vindicate Providence. § The 
appearance of injustice, in one man's making millions of 
men sinners, is relieved, " in some m.easure^'' if Adam is 
regarded as our natural head. Legal representation will 
" do much " towards removing all remaining appearance of 
injustice.! Watts tries to answer the objection that we did 
not consent to this representation by Adam. 1. A noble- 
man, when guilty of treason, disgraces and impoverishes 
his descendants as well as himself. 2. God bestows bless- 
ings on children and deprives them of privileges on account 
of parents' sins. 3. The appointment of Adam, with his 
advantages for remaining upright, was a very advantageous 
thing for his posterity. Souls are separately created, but 
are defiled by entering corrupt bodies. This transmission 
of sin, says Watts, is the greatest difficulty in the doctrine. 
It would not he just to j)unish infants eternally.^ The in- 
fant children of wicked men, he thinks, are annihilated at 
death.** 



* Doddridge's Lectures, p. 413 (London ed., 1763), 
t Ibid., p. 414. X Ibid., p. 414. § Works, vi., 224, 225. 

I Ibid., p. 235. t Ibid., p. 309. ** Ibid., pp. 309, 314. 



398 THE ATIGUSTINIAN AND THE FEDERAL 

Into this plight were candid and excellent men brought 
by their federal theology. Such timid theologues were an 
easy prey to their Arminian assailants. Doubtless it is to 
Watts and Doddridge that President Edwards refers, to- 
wards the end of his treatise on original sin, where he con- 
futes the opinion of " two divines of no inconsiderable 
note among the Dissenters of England, relating to o, partial 
imjpxitation of Adam's sin." 

President Edwards fell back on what was substantially 
the old doctrine of original sin. In reading his discussion 
we seem to be carried back to Aquinas and Augustine. His 
original speculations are to support this doctrine, but they 
do not materially modify it. It is true that he calls Adam 
our federal head, but the covenant is only " a sovereign, 
gracious establishment," going beyond mere justice, and 
promising rewards to Adam and his posterity, in case he 
should obey, to which neither he nor they could lay claim.* 
What he attempts to make out is a true and real participa- 
tion in the first sin. The human species rebelled against 
God, and that act, as far as the morality of it is concerned, 
is ours not less than Adam's. There is a consent to it, or a 
concurrence in it, on our part. The first rising of a sinful 
inclination is this consent and concurrence ; and our guilt 
for this first rising of sinful inclination is identical with our 
guilt for Adam's sin. There is not a double guilt, as if two 
things were " distinctly imputed and charged upon men in 
the sight of God." We really constitute with Adam one 
complex person — one moral whole ; as truly so as if we co- 
existed with him in time^ and were physically united to him 
as the members of the body are to the head. " The first 
existing of a corrupt disposition is not to be looked upon as 
sin distinct from their participation of Adam's first sin. It 
is as it were the extended pollution of that sin through the 
whole tree, by virtue of the constituted union of the 

* Edwards's (Dwight's ed.), ii., 543. 



THEOEIES or ORIGINAL SIN COMPARED. 399 

branches with the root ; or the inherence of the sin of that 
head of the species in the members, in their consent and 
concurrence with the head in that first act." "^ In saying 
that this is a constituted union, Edwards does not mean that 
it is artificial, unreal, or merely legal. It depends, to be 
sure, on the will of God, but not more so than does the ac- 
cepted fact of personal identity. It is a divine constitu- 
tion, but it is natural — a constitution of nature. The first 
depravity of heart and the imputation of Adam's sin, " are 
both the consequences of that established union ; but yet 
in such order that the evil disposition h> firsts and the charge 
of guilt consequent^ as it was in the case of Adam himself." 
Depravity, as an established principle, unlike \h.Q first rising 
of depravity in the soul, " is a consequence and punishment 
of the fij'st apostasy thus participated, and brings new 
guilt." Our share in the first sin is really the same as if we 
were parts of Adam, " all jointly participating and all concur- 
ring, as one v^hole^ in the disposition and action of the 
head." It will be seen that the conception of Edwards is 
very like that of Aquinas. One original point in Edwards's 
explication of the subject is the careful distinction between 
the first rising or manifestation of sinful inclination in the 
soul, and the same as an established principle. Had this 
distinction been explicitly made by Placseus, and by advo- 
cates of mediate imputation generally, their doctrine would 
not have been mistaken for a mere doctrine of hereditary 
sin. Edwards presents a philosophical theory and defence 
of participation. His aim is to show that it is no absurd or 
impossible thing for " the race of mankind truly to partake 
of the sin of the first apostasy, so that this, in reality and 
propriety, shall become their sin ; " " and therefore the sin 
of the apostasy is not theirs merely because God imputes it 
to them ; but it is truly and properly theirs, and on that 
ground God imputes it to them." f 

* Ibid., p. 544. flbid., p. 559. 



400 THE AUGUSTINIAN AND THE FEDERAL 

In 'New England, among the followers of Edwards, only 
so much of his theory was retamed as asserted an infallible 
connection, in virtue of an established constitution, between 
Adam's first sin and the existence of a sinful inclination in 
each of his descendants. This sinful inclination was re- 
garded not as a real participation, but only as a virtual or 
constructive consent to the first sin of Adam. The doctrine 
of mere inherited depravity on the one hand, and Hopkin- 
sianism and the new-school theology on the other, were the 
natural consequence. Imputation of Adam's sin was given 
up. On the contrary, Calvinists of the Princeton school 
planted themselves on the federal theory, took up the doc- 
trine of Immediate Imputation, which had brought the 
English Calvinism of the eighteenth century into such diffi- 
culties, and making Turretine their text-book, waged war 
upon the I^ew England views, not whoUy sparing Edwards 
himself. 

When we direct our attention to the Eomail Catholic the- 
ology we observe that the doctrine of immediate imputation, 
which Abelard and certain nominalists broached in the mid- 
dle ages, has found little favor in later times, except among 
latitudinarians. The orthodox Catholic theology — the rep- 
resentatives of Augustinism — have regarded the whole fed- 
eral theory with distrust and aversion. It is remarkable 
that in the Council of Trent the federal theory was brought 
forward by Catharinus, the opponent of Calvin, and a man 
who was all his life suspected in his own church of being 
loose in his theology in relation to the points which sepa- 
rated Augustine from Pelagius. According to Father Paul, 
Catharinus explained his opinion to be that as *' God made 
a covenant with Abraham and all his posterity, when he 
made him father of the faithful, so when he gave original 
righteousness to Adam and to all mankind, he made him 
seal an obligation in the name of all, to keep it for himself 
and them, observing the commandments ; which, because he 
transgressed, ne lost, as well for others as for himself, and 



THEORIES OF ORIGINAL SIN COMPARED. 401 

incurred the punisliments also for them." * Against this 
opinion the celebrated champion of orthodoxy, Dominicus 
Soto, protested, f He distinguished between the actual sin 
of Adam and the principle or habit " bred in the mind of 
the actor." " This habitual quality," remaining in Adam, 
"passed into the posterity, and is transfused as proper unto 
every one." " He compareth," says Father Paul, " original 
sin to crookedness, as it is indeed a spiritual obliquity ; for 
the whole nature of man being in Adam, when he made 
himself crooked by transgressing the precept, the whole na- 
ture of man, and, by consequent, every particular person re- 
mained crooked, not by the curvity of Adam, but by his own, 
by which he is truly crooked and a sinner, until he be 
straightened by the grace of God." Afterwards, Father 
Paul observes that the opinion of Catharinus was best un- 
derstood, " because it was expressed by a political conceit of 
a bargain made by one for his posterity, which being trans- 
gressed, they are all undoubtedly bound ; and many of the 
fathers did favor that ; but perceiving the contradiction of 
the other divines, they durst not receive it." In his theo- 
logical writings, composed after the council, Soto opposed 
the covenant theory and defended pure Augustinism. Bel- 
larmine declares that the council intended to condemn the 
doctrine of Pighius and Catharinus, who denied that innate 
depravity is properly sinful. This great expounder of Cath- 
olic theology maintains that the first sin of Adam was gene- 
ric. " There could not be anything in infants," he says, " of 
the nature of sin, unless they were participant in the first sin 
of Adam." ;j: This sin is imputed to all, who are born of 
Adam, since all, existing in the loins of Adam, in him and 
by him sinned, when he sinned." § 

By common consent of Protestants, Jansenius is considered 
to have been, on the Catholic side in the seventeenth cen- 

* We quote from the Old English translation of Father Paul's History 
of the Council of Trent, pp. 175, 177. f Ibid. , p. 176. 

t Vol. iii., Cont. ii., Lib. v., c. xviii. § Ibid,, c. xiii. 



402 THE AUGrSTINIAN AND THE FEDEEAL 

turjj the most faithful follower of Augustine. He read all 
the writings of Augustine seventeen times, and his copious 
work on this father was the fruit of his devoted labors. 
Now, Jansenius opposes the covenant theory with aU his 
miglit, as being at war with Augustinian theology. Recent 
theologians have invented that theory, he says. They could 
not have excogitated anything more foreign to Augustine's 
thoughts, more absurd in relation to his system, or more re- 
pugnant to his principles. * Augustine held that the great- 
ness of the first sin is the cause of the corruption of nature 
and of the transmission of corruption ; and so that " all 
things take place by no agreement, but happen from the na- 
ture of things, because the children are said to have sinned 
in the parent and to have been one with him." f "In Au- 
gustine's view nothing else is original sin, but concupiscence 
with guilt." Jansenius declares that nobody ever had so 
wild a dream as to imagine that this great depravation of 
human nature comes upon men from some agreement made 
by God with their parents, or is propagated by the positive 
law or will of God. :j: Augustine, he says, never resorted to 
any compacts or positive laws of God for the explication of 
this subject. It was through the nature of things, in Augus- 
tine's view, that the first great sin, together with human na- 
ture, pass to the posterity of Adam. § We could quote from 
Jansenius pages of argument and warm denunciation directed 
against the federal theory. It is not merely the idea of im- 
putation without inherent sin — the notion of Pighius and 
Catharinus — that he opposes, but also the whole conception 
of a covenant with Adam, entailing a curse on his posterity. 
The significance and importance of his sentiments on "-this 
subject, theological scholars will at once comprehend. He 
considers the federal hypothesis an innovation, hostile to the 
spirit of the Augustinian doctrine. 



* Jansenius, Augustinus (Louvain, 1640), t. ii., p. 208. 
t Ibid., p. 211. X Ibid., p. 247. § Ibid., p. 246. 



THEORIES OF OETGINAL SIN COMPARED. 403 

Here we pause in this historical investigation. It is clear 
to ITS, first, that the prevailing doctrine, down to a compara- 
tively recent period, made the imputation of Adam's sin and 
inherent depravity, each the inseparable condition of the 
other, instead of regarding the latter merely as the penal 
consequence of the former ; and, secondly, that real partici- 
pation in the first sin formed the groundwork of imputation, 
the covenant hypothesis without participation being a later 
notion, the offspring of the false and untenable philosophy 
which supralapsarian theologians vainly endeavored to es- 
tablish in the Reformed Church. 

We subjoin a brief statement of objections to the theory 
of immediate imputation on the federal basis. 

1. The Scriptural argument for this theory will not bear 
examination. The relation to God imder which Adam was 
placed is never called in the Scriptures a covenant. The ad- 
vocates of the theory pretend to adduce but one passage 
where it is thus called — Hosea vi. 7 ; but this passage is cor- 
rectly rendered in our version as follows : " For they like 
men " — not like Adam^ which is the other rendering — " have 
transgressed the covenant." The offence of Ephraim and 
Judah is an example of a common species of depravity. It 
is not claimed that the teachings of Jesus Christ contain any 
reference to a covenant with Adam or to a vicarious office 
such as the doctrine of immediate imputation attributes to 
him. If this doctrine is one of so vast consequence in the 
Christian system, it is astonishing that the founder of Chris- 
tianity should make no mention of it. The circumstance 
that the same penalties which are threatened to Adam, like- 
wise fall upon his descendants, proves nothing to the purpose. 
In whatever way they become sinful, these penalties are ap- 
propriately inflicted on them. If it is said by Paul (1 Cor. 
XV. 21, 22, 47), that all die '' in Adam," this is not saying 
that their death is the penalty of his sin. They die because 
they are the children of Adam, but how this takes place, or 
the causal nexus between the two facts, is not given. The 



404: THE AUGUSTINIAN AND THE FEDERAL 

real stronghold — if it can be called a stronghold — of the im- 
putation theory is Romans v. 12 seq. We have not room to 
examine this passage in detail. The stress of the argument 
of the advocates of this theory rests finally on the apostle's 
statement that " condemnation ^' comes upon men '^ by one 
that sinned " and " by the offence of one," or by one offence. 
But the apostle's declaration holds good, if the transgression 
of Adam brought mankind into a state of condemnation, 
whether this result was through their own depravity or not. 
The great thought of Paul is that Adam ruined the race, 
and Christ saved it. Our condemnation is traceable to one, 
our justification to the other. Intermediate agencies and 
proximate causes are left out of consideration. The manner 
in which the advocates of immediate imputation interpret 
these words of Paul reminds one of Luther's iteration of the 
hoc est meuni corpus in his controversy with Zwingle. It is 
an example of that rather frigid style of exegesis, by which 
transubstantiation and consubstantiation become dogmas in 
large portions of the church. 

2. The extreme form of the doctrine of imputation, which 
is in vogue at present, involves its advocates in the inconsist- 
ency of supposing that there is a sin for which we are respon- 
sible in the fuU legal sense — as truly so as was its perpetra- 
tor — but which does not bring on us, of itself, eternal pun- 
ishment. Calvin and most of the old theologians were con- 
sistent in holding that the penalty could not be inflicted on 
us for Adam's sin alone, apart from inherent depravity ; for 
they held that imputation is impossible apart fi'om inherent 
depravity. But the Princeton writers, separating the one 
from the other and making inherent depravity merely the 
punishment of sin imputed, still make this^ depravity the 
necessary condition of the infliction of eternal death. Why ? 
Did not Adam deserve this penalty for that first act alone ? 
Is not our responsibility for it as great as his ? Why would 
it not be just to inflict eternal death upon us for imputed sin 
alone ? What a strange theory ! Here is a sin in which we 



THEORIES OF ORIGINAL SIN COMPARED. 405 

had no real part, for which we are not regarded with moral 
disapprobation, which we are not bound to repent of, and 
which does not bring on us, as a direct penal consequence, 
eternal death ; and yet it is a sin for which we are legally 
responsible — as truly so as the individual who committed 
it! 

3. The covenant hypothesis, regarded as a solution of the 
problem of sin, wears a superficial character. It is one of 
those artificial solutions of great moral and social problems, 
which remove diSiculties in too easy a manner, at the same 
time that they raise difficulties greater than those which they 
remove. There is a striking analogy between this hypothe- 
sis and the social compact theory of government, which was 
the product of the same age. A covenant between individ- 
uals was declared to be the foundation of civil society, and 
the obligation of civil obedience was made to rest on this 
imaginary contract. Certain perplexing questions appeared 
to be solved by this hypothesis, which w^as a mere legal fic- 
tion, and accordingly its mischievous bearing in other re- 
spects was overlooked. 

The theoretical ^ defences of the federal hypothesis are 
w^ak enough. It is objected to the doctrine that men infal- 
libly become sinners in consequence of Adam's sin, through 
a sovereign constitution — the idea of New England theology 
— that this doctrine attributes too much to the will of God. 
We will not here discuss the New England view ; but, 
strange to say, this objection comes from those who found 
the covenant itself on nothing better. They hold that men 
are judicially condemned to be sinners, and to endure the 
penalty of sin ; but when we ask for the ground of this con- 
demnation we are referred to the covenant, and when we 
inquire into the justice of the covenant, we are thrown back 
on the sovereignty of God. They seek to remove a diffi- 
culty by creating another, only one step distant, of a more 
formidable character. It is better, with Augustine, to leave 
some questions unanswered than to solve them by inventing 



406 THE AFGUSTINIAN AND THE FEDEEAL 

hypotheses which are in open conflict with proper concep- 
tions of the divine justice. 

The most plausible defence of the covenant hypothesis is 
that founded on scientia media. God foresaw that the de- 
scendants of Adam, if they were to be tried individually, 
would not do better than he, his inducements to right action 
being greater than theirs would be ; and, therefore, deter- 
mined to treat them judicially according to his conduct. 
The scientia mecUa^ in such applications of it, is an exploded 
principle. It might as well be argued that because God 
foresaw that Adam and his posterity w^ould be sinners, it 
would be just for him to condemn them all and punish them 
eternally, without any probation w^hatsoever. 

The analogy of Christ's work is pleaded in support of the 
theory in question. But Owen, as we have seen, makes the 
relation of Christ, as the author of benefits to his people, an 
exception to the ordinary rule of the divine administration, 
and a case by itself. I^ot to insist on the propriety of this 
distinction, it is sufficient to say that the argument from the 
analogy of Christ's work depends wholly on the idea that 
distributive justice is satisfied by the atonement, so that the 
believer, apart from the consideration of the promise to hifti, 
could not be justly condemned. To identify the scriptural 
and orthodox conception of expiation with the last proposi- 
tion is simply preposterous. 

4. The doctrine of immediate imputation, in the form in 
which it is now held, involves, by necessary inference, the 
proposition that God is the author of sin. It is held that, 
on account of Adam's sin, God withdraws from the soul, 
from the moment of its creation — that is, never imparts to 
the soul— the grace, without which it cannot but sin. It is 
thus rendered sinful, prior to moral choice — prior to the 
knowledge of moral distinctions. It is vain to urge that the 
act of God is of a negative character. What he does ren- 
ders the effect inevitable. It is vain to say that the faculties 
of agency remain. By the supposition, it is just as impossi- 



THEOJRIES OF ORIGINAL SIN COMPARED. 407 

ble, from the moment of creation, to be holj as to see with- 
out light or to breathe without air. To suppose a man to be 
holj is even more absurd, for, on the withdrawal of grace, 
the powers of the soul necessarily fall into disorder and cor- 
ruption. We do not see how the conclusion can be avoided 
that God is the author of sin. 

5. The imputation theory makes sin the penalty of sin, in 
a way which the church has never countenanced. I am con- 
demned to be sinful, as a punishment for the sin of Adam, 
who is called my representative. I had no real agency, it is 
asserted, in that sin. But sin is inflicted on me as a penalty 
for another's act. ^ow, this theory is totally different from 
the old view that a wrong-doer fastens on himself a habit 
which becomes too strong for him to cast off ; so that his 
sin becomes his punishment. The theory of immediate im- 
putation makes sin to be inflicted on them who are not 
wrong-doers. They are sinful in pursuance of an ante-natal 
condemnation — ante-natal, and of an earlier date than their 
creation. The Augustinian doctrine holds that native de- 
pravity is both sin and punishment; but it professes to 
bring this birth- sin under the great law of habit, to which 
we have just adverted. We sinned in Adam and brought 
on ourselves, as individuals, the sinful bondage to evil in 
which we are born. It is thus widely at variance with the 
modern theory, according to which we are slaves of sin for 
an act which we are not to blame for and with which we 
had nothing to do. The agency of God in relation to the 
existence of sin is discussed by President Edwards in his 
treatise on original sin ; and he makes the precise distinc- 
tion which we have made here. The continuance of a state 
of depravity according to a settled course of nature, is one 
thing ; the origination of such a state in an individual is 
quite another thing. This is to charge Adam's sin to his 
posterity. The statement and admission of this distinction 
leads Edwards to introduce, at this point in his discussion, 
the realistic view of our connection with Adam, whereby 



408 THE AUGUSTINIAN AND THE FEDERAL 

his act is made to be ours also, and thus to be a just cause of 
our inherent depravity from birth. 

6. The theory of immediate imputation is incompatible 
with a right conception of the nature of sin. Princeton es- 
says in support of this theory make much use of President 
Edwards's proposition that the virtuousness or viciousness of 
acts of the will or dispositions of the heart lies not in their 
cause, but then- nature. "Without assenting to everything 
that Edwards teaches under this head, we fully accord with 
his main idea that blame and praise belong to acts and states 
of the will, and not to anything antecedent, to which they 
are in some sense due. In the chapter referred to, he is 
prosecuting his old crusade against the notion of choosing 
choices. But he guards his own meaning in the following 
remark : " As the phrase, heing the author, may be under- 
stood, not of being the producer by an antecedent act of 
will ; but as a person may be said to be the author of the act 
of will itself, by his being the immediate agent, or the being 
that is acting J or in exercise in that act ; if the phrase, heing 
the author, is used to signify this, then doubtless common 
sense requires men being [to be] the authors of their own 
acts of will, in order to their being esteemed worthy of 
praise or dispraise on account of them." Men are responsi- 
ble, according to Edwards, for their evil native character, or 
state of will, because they produced it through the generic act 
— the act of the race — in Adam. Whether that first sin 
was thus generic, and whether if it were so, it would justify 
the consequences just stated — whether, in other words, a 
generic act of this sort may, according to a righteous order, 
entail guilt on the individual and engender sinful character 
prior to an act of individual self-determination — we shall 
not here inquire. But this is manifest, that Edwards, like the 
Augustinians, supposed that an act of sin in which we truly 
and really took part is the indispensable condition of native 
guilt and depravity. This condition the doctrine of imme- 
diate imputation on the federal basis sweeps away. We 



THEORIES OF ORIGINAL SIN COMPARED. 409 

are made to have a habit of sin from the outset, with no 
prior act of sin on onr part, out of which it grew. This 
violates the fundamental conception of holy and sinful char- 
acter, which both the Scriptures and the common-sense of 
mankind decisively sanction. 
18 



410 A SKETCH OF THE HISTOET OF THE 



A SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE 
OF FUTURE PUNISHMENT.* 

Recent ecclesiastical events in New England have called 
up for public discussion the Christian doctrine of punish- 
ment in the future life. The earnest and dispassionate con- 
sideration of any of the momentous themes of religion cannot 
fail to be of wholesome tendency. In the present ferment 
of theological opinion in all Protestant countries, no tradi- 
tional belief can escape the ordeal of renewed and searching 
inquiry. "Whatever in the temper of the times may be de- 
serving of censure, there is a vast and increasing number of 
persons who do really seek the truth with an open mind. 
It having been thought best to present to the readers of The 
New Englander two essays on the doctrine referred to — 
written independently of one another, with no polemical in- 
tent, and each of them by a theological scholar competent 
to handle the questions involved, in the light to be drawn 
from the improved philology of our day — the present 
writer willingly consents to introduce these learned discus- 
sions by preliminary remarks, chiefly historical. 

In the ancient period — the patristic period — embracing 
the first six centuries, the doctrine of endless punishment 
was the prevalent opinion.f The idea of the ultimate res- 

* An Article in The New Englander for March, 1878. 

f A word may here be said upon Jewish opinion on this subject. The 
Pharisees in the time of Christ taug-ht the doctrine of endless punish- 
ment, as we learn from Josephus, B. tT". , ii. 8, 14, Ant. xviii 1, 3. In 
both passages Josephus uses the term aidios. See, also, Gfrorer, Das 
Jahrhundert d. Heils^ ii. 289, where the Rabbinical teaching is given. 



DOCTRINE OF FUTURE PUNISHMENT. 411 

toration of all was entertained by a few eminent church 
teachers, and the notion of an eventual annihilation of the 
wicked was occasionally broached. Certain writers are 
often erroneously cited as favoring the last-rnentioned view. 
The Fathers not unfrequently argue against the belief that 
the soul is self -existent, and in opposition to such a theory 
they affirm that the soul, like every other creature of God, 
is upheld by divine power, and will continue to exist as 
long as He shall choose to maintain it in being. Remarks 
of this kind have been construed as indicating that the souls 
of the wicked will one day cease to be. So Justin Martyr 
(Dial. c. Tryjpli.^ c. 5) is often interpreted ; and, at the first 
blush, this seems to be the natural understanding of his 
words. But the context of the very passage appears to ex- 
clude this construction, which elsewhere would seem to be 
expressly contradicted {Dial. c. TrypK.., c. 130, Ajpol.^ i., 28). 
Irenseus is misinterpreted in a similar way. In one place 
{Adv. Haer., lib. ii., 34), a casual reader would suppose him 
to affirm that the existence of wicked souls is terminable. 
Here again a close scrutiny of the context shows that a dis- 
tinction is made between bare existence, and " life " in the 
higher sense, with which " length of days " is made synony- 
mous. This distinction is drawn out in other passages (Lib, 
V. 4, § 3 ; Y, § 1 ; 27, § 2). " Separation from God," he 
says, " is death," or the loss of that " life and light," that 
true joy, which depends on communion wdth God, That 
Irenseus held to the doctrine of annihilation has also been 
deduced from a remark made in one of the so-called Pfaf- 
fian fragments relative to the ultimate destruction of evil. 
The author of this fragment evidently had in mind Col. i. 
20, 22 ; and what he meant to say precise^, as far as the des- 
tiny of the wicked is concerned, is not fully clear. But the 
document itself is of more than doubtful genuineness, so 

Endless punishment, though the common, was not the universal, belief 
of the Jews. See the reference to the Talmud, in Schiirer, N. T. Zeitge- 
schichte^ p, 597. 



412 A SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF THE 

that no inference respecting the tenets of Irenseus can be 
built npon it. There are passages in which Irensens can 
hardly be otherwise interpreted than as teaching endless 
conscious punishment {e. g.^ Lib. iv. 28, § 1 ; c. 39,' § 4 ; cf .. 
Lib. iii. 23, § 3 ; iv. 28, § 1). At least every other interpre- 
tation seems artificial. 

Arnobius (near the beginning of the fourth century), the 
African rhetorician, advocated the opinion that the soul 
gains immortality by perseverance in goodness, and that con- 
sequently the wicked absolutely go out of being. But he 
had too many idiosyncrasies of opinion to be of any weight 
as an authority for ascertaining the beliefs of his contempo- 
raries. Arnobius was in no sense a representative of ortho- 
doxy. 

The Alexandrians, Clement and Origen, are the chief dis- 
sentients from the ordinary doctrine, in the first three cen- 
turies. Clement explicitly affirms his belief that all will 
finally be restored to holiness. Origen maintains this opin- 
ion, and contributed more than any other theologian to give 
it whatever degree of currency it obtained in the ancient 
church. With Origen it was an esoteric doctrine, a doctrine 
which belonged to the believer in the mature stage of Chris- 
tian character and of discernment;, but one which would be 
abused and be prolific of harm, if it were proclaimed to all. 

It is important to observe the connection of this belief of 
Origen with other parts of his system. He held that the 
will does not lose its mutable quality, or issue in that per- 
manence of character, which is an essential idea in the 
Augustinian anthropology. Original sin he explained on 
the supposition of a pre-existence of souls, a doctrine derived 
from Platonism, and of a moral fall prior to birth; and 
though he believed in universal restoration, which would 
comprehend in its wide sweep fallen angels and even Satan, 
he thought that there might be a series of falls and recover- 
ies in the seons to come. Punishment, it is also important 
to remark, he held to be disciplinary in its aim, the reform 



DOCTEESTE OF FUTURE PUNISHMENT. 413 

of the offender being the prime end in view in the infliction 
of it. 

At this point we may interpose two observations. The 
first is that the question of the design of punishment in the 
future life is intimately connected with the problem of its 
duration. Is punishment ordained chiefly for the recovery 
of the transgressor ? Or is it retrospective, strictly retribu- 
tive, a recompense, a reaction of offended justice and of the 
violated moral order ? It is true that restoration does not 
follow, with logical necessity, from the first view, stated 
above, of the ofiice of punishment in the divine economy ; 
for it may be held that the resistance of free-will will de- 
feat the provision of grace, and prevent chastisement from 
bringing forth its appropriate fruits, since they do not ensue 
with any fatalistic certainty. Still, universal restoration is 
more likely to be adopted in connection with this idea of 
the reformatory function of penalty, ^ov does the doctrine 
of the retributive, or vindicatory, design of punishment 
necessarily exclude restoration ; since it is conceivable that 
repentance should take place under the operation of penal- 
ties not ordained for the sake of this result. Still, a doc- 
trine of restoration is much more likely to be rejected by 
those who so interpret the significance of punishment. It is 
possible, to be sure, to combine the two views of punish- 
ment, and to consider it, in its direct or primary design, re- 
troactive, but with a subordinate aim which looks to a bene- 
ficent effect upon the character of the sufferer. We do not 
here discuss the question, but simply point out its cardinal 
importance. In not a few modern discussions of the Atone- 
ment, it has surprised us to find no preliminary consideration 
of the design of punishment under the divine government. 

The second observation suggested by the foregoing state- 
ment of Origen's creed is that the question relates to the 
effect of redemption. "What are to be its consequences ? 
What the extent of its actual operation ? There is a Uni- 
versalism — a Universalismus vulgaris — which makes little 



414 A SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF THE 

or nothing of tlie fact of sin, and founds itself either on a 
denial of ill-desert, or on a belief in man's power to extricate 
himself from the control of evil, to shake off the principle 
of selfishness and ungodliness. Christianity is the redemp- 
tion of the world by Jesus Christ. Its fundamental postu- 
late is the fact of sin and of condemnation. Deliverance is 
provided, which is available to all. 'Now it is conceivable 
that all should sooner or later lay hold of this help and be 
saved. If the Bible had so declared, there would have been 
involved in this declaration no denial or attenuation of the 
essential elements of the Gospel. It would have been sim- 
ply the revelation of a fact by which the truths of the In- 
carnation and Expiation of Christ, and of the work of the 
Spirit, are nowise affected. We are not aware that John 
Foster denied any fundamental part of the gospel method 
of redemption. He probably accepted cordially the Apos- 
tles' and the Nicene creeds. He was an evangelical Uni- 
versalist. Universalism in every form may be an error, and 
a very mischievous error ; or it may not be. But all sorts 
of Universalism are not to be confounded together.* 

When we pass into the second section of the patristic 
period (from the beginning of the fourth to the end of the 
sixth century), we find that although the doctrine of endless 
punishment stiU prevails, there is more dissent from it. 

* A student at Cambridge laid before Robert Hall his perplexities on 
the subject of eternal punishment. Hall, after stating, in his forcible 
manner, his reasons for accepting the doctrine, thus concludes : " I 
would only add that in my humble opinion the doctrine of the eternal 
duration of future misery, metaphysically considered, is not an essential 
article of faith, nor is the belief of it ever proposed as a term of salva- 
tion; that, if we really flee from the wrath to come, by truly repenting 
of our sins, and laying hold of the mercy of G-od through Christ by a 
lively faith, our salvation is perfectly secure, whichever hypothesis we 
embrace on this most mysterious subject. The evidence accompanying 
the popular interpretation is by no means to be compared to that which 
establishes our common Christianity, and therefore the fate of thfe Chris- 
tian religion is not to be considered as implicated in the belief or disbelief 
of the popular doctrine." — Hall's Works, v., 527. 



DOCTRINE OF FUTURE PUNISHMENT. 415 

Gregory of Nyssa, one of the most eminent, if not the most 
eminent, of the ancient Greek theologians, expresses himself 
distinctly on the side of universal restoration.* Less defi- 
nitely, Gregory of I^azianzus takes the same view. In the 
latter part of the fourth century, the two great representa- 
tives of the Antioch school of theology, Diodore of Tarsus 
and Theodore of Mopsuestia were restorationists. In their 
theology, the Incarnation was not only for the deliverance 
of man from sin, but its design and effect were to elevate 
mankind to a higher stage of being than that on which he 
stood, or which was possible to him, as a descendant of 
Adam. Beyond its negative effect, the work of Christ, 
the second Adam, conferred a positive good by lifting up 
the race to a higher destination. And this work, Theodore 
and his followers maintained, would eventually take effect 
on all. Theodore argues that Christ never would have said 
" until thou hast paid the uttermost farthing," if it had not 
been possible for this to be done ; nor would he have said 
that one should be beaten with many stripes, and another 
with few, if there was to be no end to the infliction when 
men had suffered a punishment commensurate with their 
sin.f This argument, it will be perceived, presupposes that 
a limited punishment is all that justice requires, and that, 
when this has been endured, the debt is paid. 

ISTo doubt this opinion of the Antiochian teachers, which 
was consonant with that of Origen, though adopted by them 
independently, had many adherents in the fifth century. 
But the antagonism to Origen's philosophy and theology, 
which was excited under the lead of Jerome and others, 
caused this opinion, together with other peculiarities of the 
theology of the great Alexandrian, to be at length generally 
rejected and proscribed as heretical. Augustine strenuously 
defended the doctrine of endless punishment, although in 



* Orat. Cat^ 8, 35 ; also in the treatise de anima. 
f Asseman. Bibl. Orient.^ t. iii., p. 323. 



416 A SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF THE 

his time, and within the circle of his influence, there were 
"tender-hearted Christians," as he styles them, besides 
others whom he classifies differently, who declined to accept 
it."^ From the close of the fifth century, the doctrine that 
those condemned at the last judgment endure endless pain 
became an undisputed article of belief in the church. 

Yet this article of belief was practically modified in a 
most important degree by the rise and establishment of the 
doctrine of purgatory. The church from the beginning had 
believed in an intermediate state. The fathers of the first 
centuries held that Christ, after his death, descended into 
Hades. There he prosecuted his work in opposition to 
Satan. Sometimes it was said that he was victorious there 
in some undefined conflict with the Devil. This ancient 
idea is expressed thus in The Institution of a Christian 
Man^ which was issued in the early days of the English 
Reformation, in the reign of Henry YIIL : " Our Saviour 
Jesus Christ at his entry into hell first conquered and op- 
pressed both the devil and hell, and also death itself." f 
Without tracing the different modifications of this idea — 
half -earnest, and half -mythical or symbolic — as it is brought 
forward in the patristic writers, this, at least, was a clear 
and accepted tenet, based, as was supposed, on 1 Pet. iv. 5-T 
and Eph. iv. T-11, that in the interval between his crucifix- 
ion and resurrection, Jesus preached to a portion of the in- 
habitants of Hades, or the Underworld, the abode of de- 
parted souls. There he delivered the pious dead of the 
Old Testament, whom he transported to Paradise. This 
tenet is also set forth in immediate connection with the 
passage which we have cited from The Institution of a 
Christian Man : " Afterward he spoiled hell, and deliv- 
ered and brought with him from thence all the souls of those 
righteous and good men which from the fall of Adam died 

* De Chit. Dei, lib. xxi. 17-21. Cf. Encheirid. , c. 112. , 
f Quoted in Blunt's Diet, of Doctr. and Eist. Theol.^ p. 416. 



DOCTEINE OF FUTURE PUNISHMENT. 417 

in the fear of God, and in the faith and belief of this our 
Saviour, whicli was then to come." Clement of Alexandria, 
in harmony with his general system, thought that the vir- 
tuous heathen shared in the benefit of Christ's preaching in 
Hades. Paradise, to which the saints of the old covenant 
were conveyed, was not generally considered by the Fathers 
to be a subdivision of Hades, but it was held to be an abode 
of happiness, with respect to the precise location of which 
opinion was not uniform. Origen placed it in an apartment 
of heaven — the third heaven. More and more the feeling 
spread, especially after Origen's time, that Hades, the Un- 
derworld, was a gloomy, undesirable region, where there 
could be nothing but suffering, and where Satan held sway."^ 
Yet it was agreed that the righteous and the wicked do not 
enter at death into the full fruition of reward or the full 
measure of suffering. They wait for this until the resurrec- 



* Hades is the rendering-, in the Septuagint, of SJieol^ the Underworld, 
the abode of departed souls without reference to distinctions of character 
or lot. In the New Testament Hades occurs only in Matt. xi. 23 (and its 
parallel, Luke x. 15), Matt. xvi. 18, Luke xvi. 23, Acts ii. 27, 31, Rev. i. 
18, vi. 8, XX, 13, 14 : since in 1 Cor. xv. 55 and Rev. iii. 7, the correct 
reading omits the word. In Acts ii. 27, 31, the term appears obviously 
to retain its old significance. In the book of Revelation it retains its in- 
timate association with "death." In Matt. xi. 23, Luke x. 15, the gen- 
eral idea of destruction comports with the old conception of Hades. The 
same is true of Matt. xvi. 18: "The gates of Hades shall not prevail 
against it." In Luke xvi. 23, Dives is in Hades, in torment; Lazarus 
"afar off," separated from him by a chasm or an abyss, in the bosom of 
Abraham. Comparing this passage with Acts ii. 27, 31, and with Luke 
xxiii. 43, we are led to believe that the Evangelist conceived of the place 
denoted by " the bosom of Abraham" as in Paradise, and Paradise as in- 
cluded within Hades. The heavenly Paradise of which Paul speaks (3 
Cor. xii. 4) is differently placed. The perplexity of Augustine in deter- 
mining the sense of the statement in the Apostles' Creed— " he descended 
into hell," is partly connected with his inability to think of Hades as com- 
prehending * ' Paradise " within it. His frank confession of the difficulties 
that beset his mind on this subject, and especially on the preaching to 
the spirits in prison (1 Pet. iii. 19), is made at length in one of his Epistles 
(clxiv., ad Eoodium). 
18* 



418 A SKETCH OF THE HISTOEY OF THE 

tion and tlie last jndgment. Some of the Fathers had 
taught — among them, Clement of Alexandria, and, later, 
Lactantius, Ambrose, and Jerome — that m. the fire of the 
last day, which consumes the world, the remaining dross of 
sin will be burnt away from the souls of the redeemed. The 
same idea, it appears, is found here and there in the Eabbini- 
cal teaching, and even, as some think, prior to the time of 
Christ.* Clement of Alexandria, as might be expected, 
pronounced this purifying fire to be of an etherial or spu'it- 
ual nature. It was reserved for Augustine, however, to lay 
the foundation of the doctrine of purgatory, by suggesting 
that Christians not fully cleansed at death from the pollu- 
tion of sin are purified in the intermediate state, through 
the agency of purgatorial fire. His conjectm-e was converted 
by those who came after him into a fixed article of belief. 
Under the auspices of Gregory I. it established itself in the 
theology of the Western Chm*ch. It connected itseK with 
the doctrine of penance and indulgences, which was rounded 
out by Alexander of Hales, in the thirteenth century, by 
the introduction of the notion of a treasury of supererogatory 
merits. The Eastern Church has never admitted the Latin 
doctrine of a fiery purgatory. Yet Eastern orthodoxy 
allows that pains of remorse may exist in the minds of the 
redeemed after death, and that prayers and offerings in 
their behalf are beneficial. 

Thus the church, throughout the middle ages, or for a 
thousand years, held to a reformatory punishment, of a 
limited duration, for the mass of those who were under its 
tutelage. All were baptized. None were excluded from 
the sacraments but the contumacious and incorrigible. Hell 
was reserved for those dying unabsolved, in mortal sin. 
There was hope for the final salvation of all not obstinate 
in their rebellion against the church and the law of God. 
From this hope, however, the heathen and the infidel were 

* Gf rorer, Das JahrTu d. Heils^ ii, , p. 81. 



DOCTRINE OF FUTURE PUNISHMENT. 419 

of course cut off. The Dwina Commedia of Dante, in its 
three parts, gives to the reader a fair conception of the 
theology of Aquinas, whom the poet calls his master. Only 
over the gate of one of the regions which the poet explored 
was written the inscription : 

"Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch' entrate." 

The Reformers attacked the whole doctrine of purgatory. 
This they did on scriptural grounds, and from the connec- 
tion in which that doctrine stood with the theory of indul- 
gences, and with the claim of the church and the Pope to a 
partial control over the lot of those who are enduring pur- 
gatorial fire. It was with an assault upon the mediaeval 
conception of indulgences and the correlated tenets, that 
Luther began his movement. The Augsburg Confession 
(Art. IX.) makes baptism essential to salvation, and teaches 
that even unbaptized children are lost. Some of the Calvin- 
istic confessions (as the Confessio Belgica^ Art. XXXI Y.), 
appear to affirm the same tenet ; though others (as Conf. 
Scot. ii. A. D. 1580), repudiate it. Calvin denies that all un- 
baptized persons are adjudged to eternal death, and uses 
language consonant with the view which so many of the old 
Protestant theologians embraced, that not the privation, 
but the contempt, of the sacraments brings perdition {Inst., 
lY., xvi., 26). Many of the Calvinistic confessions (as those 
of the Westminster Assembly) affirm that "elect" infants 
are saved, and say nothing, except by implication, respect- 
ing those who are not elect. Augustine had taught the 
final condemnation of non-elect infants, and had retreated 
from his earlier view that their punishment in the future 
life is purely negative. He thought, however, that their 
damnation is of the mildest sort (" levissima," Cont. Jul., 
v., 4. Cf. Ep. clxxxvi., 29). The schoolmen were generally 
disposed to embrace Augustine's prior and more merciful 
opinion, so that when a distinguished ecclesiastic in the four- 
teenth century, Gregory of Rimini, revived the later idea 



420 A SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF THE 

of Augustine, he was designated hj the opprobrious title of 
tortor infantum. The schoohnen placed infants in one of 
the outer zones of hell — the linibus infantimn — where thej 
are deprived of bliss. Augustine had a greater influence 
than any other patristic writer in shaping the doctrines of 
the Reformers on these topics. Zwingle, who brought asvay 
from the old church more of the tone of the Kenaissance 
than any other of the Protestant champions, held that not 
only infants, but the virtuous heathen, also, are partakers of 
salvation. These ideas were associated with his peculiar 
tenet respecting original sin, and with other opinions, which, 
as is well known, led Luther to feel that there was in him a 
certain Rationalistic vein : " Ihr habt einen anderen Geist 
denn Wir.^^ 

The Protestant theologians carried their opposition to 
purgatory so far as to obliterate the whole doctrine of the 
intermediate state. The Westminster Confession (c. xxxii.) 
declares that " the souls of the righteous," at death, " are 
received into the highest heavens," and "the souls of the 
wicked are cast into hell ; " and adds : " Besides these two 
places for souls separated from then* bodies, the Scripture 
acknowledgeth none." In Luthers Bible, both Sheol and 
Hades (even in Acts ii. 31), as well as Gehenna., were ren- 
dered HohU ; in King James's version, " Hell." That doc- 
trine was revived, in a form to exclude the notion of pur- 
gatory, in particular by certain Anglican divines, as Light- 
foot, Burnet, and Pearson, and by Campbell in his Disserta- 
tions on the Four Gosjyels. 

We have now to glance at those modifications of doctrinal 
opinion on this subject, which have arisen in more modern 
times among evangelical theologians who do not accept liter- 
ally the confessions of the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- 
turies. 

We begin with the Lutheran theologians who are loosely 
designated as of the Schleiermacherian school — that school 
to which the revival of a believing and scientific theology, 



DOCTEINE OF FUTURE PUNISHMENT. 421 

in opposition to the old-fashioned Rationalism, is chiefly 
due. 

The point to which theologians of this class not imfre- 
qnently refer is the prophetic and fragmentary character of 
the eschatological teaching of the New Testament. Just 
as the predictions of the Messianic age must of necessity be 
presented in pictures, and be only partially apprehensible to 
the church of the Old Testament, so an analogous predic- 
tive element enters into the description of the Last Things, 
which forms a part of the 'New Testament Eevelation. It 
is only glimpses that are afforded us of an order of things 
outside of all present experience. Hence the impossibility 
of that precision of dogmatic statement which is practica- 
ble in other parts of the Christian system. This considera- 
tion may, to be sure, be used to eviscerate of their proper 
meaning express declarations of the Saviour and his apos- 
tles, or to attenuate the force of the moral truth revealed in 
them. But such is not the design of the theologians to 
whom we now refer. They bring forward this suggestion 
by way of wholesome caution against an over- literal inter- 
pretation, or a presumptuous claim to know more than it 
was the intention of Heaven to reveal. 

The principal deviation from the traditional tenets on the 
subject before us, which is found among the German evan- 
gelical theologians, is in the idea of an opportunity of hear- 
ing the Gospel, to be granted, beyond the bounds of this 
life, and prior to the last judgment, to those who have not 
heard of Christ here, or have imperfectly apprehended his 
Gospel. The belief is frequently expressed that multitudes 
who depart from the world without a true loiowledge of the 
way of life, will be enlightened and renewed during this in- 
termediate period. It is maintained that eternal punish- 
ment is threatened in the Scriptures to those who have been 
made acquainted with the Gospel, but have refused to avail 
themselves of its offers, and that a soimd exegesis does not 
warrant the assumption that anything but the conscious re- 



422 A SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF THE 

jection of tlie light and help which the Gospel affords, will 
be attended with final condemnation. It is true, also, that 
the problem of the ultimate restoration of all is discussed ; 
bnt an affirmative solution is seldom unequivocally ex- 
pressed. Many, on the other hand, would decide this ques- 
tion in the negative. 

It should be stated, also, that this class of theologians, how- 
ever much they may qualify the old formulas and concep- 
tions of inspiration, stand firmly upon the Protestant princi- 
ple that the Bible, fairly interpreted, with a comparison of 
Scripture with Scripture, is the rule of faith. 

Schleiermacher {Christl. Glaube, ii., 503 seq.) opposes the 
doctrine of eternal pnnishment, partly on exegetical grounds : 
he interprets 1 Cor. xv., 25, 26, as teaching the opposite. 
He finds psychological difficulties in the supposition of an 
unending self-reproach through an activity of conscience 
which yet is attended with no moral improvement. The 
capacity to conceive of the blessedness of the redeemed, 
which is the necessary condition of this anguish, involves a 
remaining capacity to share in the good thus imagined. It 
is impossible, he argues, to suppose that the saints in heaven 
can be happy if their feUow-men, for whom, even though 
their sufferings are deserved, they must feel compassion and 
sympathy, are in a state of misery from which there is no 
hope of deliverance. The sorrow of the good would be in- 
creased by the consciousness that their own salvation was se- 
cured by help accorded, in the course of the divine govern- 
ment, to them, which the lost had not enjoyed. " Therefore 
we should not hold to such a notion [as to the destiny of 
men], without decisive testimonies that Jesus has foreseen it, 
such as we by no means possess. 

Neander, in his Planting and Training of the Church 
(Robinson's ed., p. 483 seq.), takes up this question of resto- 
ration. He admits the possibility of an increasing illumina- 
tion of the Apostle Paul's mind in respect to the prospects of 
the kingdom, analogous to that progressive enlightenment 



DOCTEINE OF FDTUEE PUNISHMENT. 423 

which Peter experienced on the question of the privileges of 
the Gentiles. In the later Pauline epistles there is an ad- 
vance beyond the earlier. " We discern in Paul a progres- 
sive knowledge of eschatology generally, as it grew^ up under 
the enlightening and guiding influence of the Holy Spirit, 
when we compare his Epistles to the Thessalonians with his 
later epistles, the lifting-up of believers to an ever-enduring 
fellowship with the Lord (1 Thess. iv. 17), with the later de- 
veloped doctrine of the earth as the seat of the perfected 
kingdom of God ; and 2 Thess. i. 7, 9, with the doctrine of 
a flnal restitution announced at a later period." This doc- 
trine l^eander is inclined to find in 1 Cor. xv. 27, 28, in con- 
nection with Phil. ii. 10, 11, and Coloss. i. 20. He also touches 
on this topic in his posthumous work on the Epistles to the 
Corinthians {Corinthertriefe, p. 246 seq.), in his comment on 
1 Corinthians xv. 22 : " For as in Adam all die, even so in 
Christ shall all be made alive." After noticing the differ- 
ent interpretations given to the passage, he says ; " After 
all, the simplest construction would be to take the second 
' all ' as equally universal with the first. In that case there 
would be contained in these words the doctrine of a univer- 
sal restoration." He then proceeds to answer objections to 
this interpretation from declarations found elsewhere in the 
ISTew Testament, and by Paul himself, which are thought 
to be of a contrary tenor ; and concludes thus : " therefore, 
the jpossihility of such a construction of the passage as we 
have pointed out, must be maintained." But in a note writ- 
ten later (in 1834), he says : " Paul had in mind only the be- 
lievers, and ignores those who are lost." That is, he returns 
to the restricted interpretation of the second " all." In con- 
nection with the passage previously quoted from the earlier 
work, is this note : " The doctrine of such a universal resti- 
tution would not stand in contradiction to the doctrine of 
eternal punishment, as the latter appears in the Gospels ; for 
although those who are hardened in wickedness, left to the 
consequences of their conduct, their merited fate, have to 



424: A SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF THE 

expect endless unliappiness, yet a hidden purpose of the di- 
vine compassion is not necessarily excluded, by virtue of 
wliicli, through the wisdom of God revealing itself in the 
discipline of free agents, they will be led to a free appropri- 
ation of redemption " (Eobinson's ed., p. 487). 

This last thought appears to be involved in the' rather 
obscure discussion by [N^itzsch, one of the most eminent of 
the modern Lutheran theologians and ecclesiastics {Systein 
d. christl. Lehre^ p. 416 seq.). " The Scripture teaches an 
eternal damnation of individual men, because it is in hy- 
pothesi necessary. The non-coercive, non-magical, non-me- 
chanical nature of grace leaves room for -final resistance to 
its influence ; perseverance in the resistance of unbelief is 
possible : consequently there must be de futuro^ and on this 
supposition, if there is to be a final judgment, eternal dam- 
nation." But whether this hj^pothesis will become thesis, 
or actuality, is another question. Nitzsch argues against 
the annihilation doctrine. The Saviour (in Matt. x. 28, 
Luke xii. 4, 5) does not oppose to the fear of being killed 
by men, the fear of being killed by God ; he does not op- 
pose to the fear of bodily death, the fear of death abso- 
lutely. Not to kill {airoKTelvai\ but "to destroy the 
soul " {aiToXeaau "^uxv^), " to cast into hell " {i/jb^aXetv 
6i? TTjv yievvav), is what God is represented, in contrast 
with men, as able to do. It is supposable that eternal dam- 
nation is a mere hypothesis and universal restoration the 
fact ; or that there is an absolute annihilation ; or that the 
wicked soul is reduced to a ruin — bereft of every good as 
well as evil activity. In either case it is conceivable that 
the same apostle who had preached eternal damnation, yet 
in his final eschatology {ausserste Eschatologie)^ in 1 Cor. xv., 
passes above and beyond this antithesis. 

Julius Miiller discusses the question before us with his 
wonted ability, in his unpublished lectm-es, and in his trea- 
tise on The Doctrine of Sin {Lehre v. d. Siinde, ii., 598 seq.). 
In this work (vol. i., p. 334 seq.), Miiller insists upon the dis- 



DOCTEINE OF FUTUEE PUNISHMENT. 425 

tinction between chastisement and penalty, the former being 
distinguished by having for its design the amendment of 
him on whom it is inflicted, and being thus the product of 
paternal mercy. The idea of punishment, on the contrary, 
is set forth in such passages as 2 Thess. i. 8, 9, ii. 12, He- 
brews X. 29, 30 ; and most clearly in 1 Cor. xi. 32, where 
chastisement and penalty are brought into juxtaposition, and 
explicitly contrasted with one another. Punishment, more- 
over, is set forth as related to guilty rather than to sin as a 
principle to be overcome. MilUer maintains that no univer- 
sal restoration can possibly take place prior to the judgment, 
since in that case there could be no separation and no judg- 
ment at all. Hence he concludes that restoration cannot be 
taught in 1 Cor. xv. 22, nor in Rom. Vo 18, 19, since these 
passages would place it, if they referred to it at all, in this 
intermediate period. He confutes the argument for univer- 
sal restoration which is founded on the aim, or proper ten- 
dency, of the Gospel and of the divine system of recovery ; 
since the results are made contingent on the free act of the 
creature. Nor does he regard as conclusive the grounds 
which are drawn from Christian feeling, which revolts at an 
unsubdued antagonism to the divine will to be perpetuated 
forever. He admits the weight of this objection, but does 
not consider it decisive. The infliction of punishment, 
where the disobedient creature passively and involuntarily 
acknowledges the absolute supremacy and majesty of the 
divine law, secures from discordance the harmony of \\lq di- 
vine order. Nor, again, can restoration be infallibly de- 
duced from the divine love, since though justice is a branch 
of love, yet in love justice and holiness are essential ele- 
ments. Love, from its very nature, must react against its 
opposite, and assume the form of holy indignation. Nor 
can inhumanity be charged on the Creator, if a being en- 
dued with free-will, through his own sin brings on himself 
endless ruin. The jpossibility of endless punishment must 
then be conceded. Sin has a tendency to perpetuate itself \ 



426 A SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF THE 

character tends to permanence — evil character, as well as 
good. What the actual results will be can be learned only 
from revelation. Miiller holds that the divine love will 
never abandon men until they have become hardened against 
its influences and efforts. His conclusion is that the text 
(Matt. xii. 31, 32) : " All manner of sin and blasphemy " — 
that is, every sin, even blasphemy — " shall be forgiven unto 
men ; but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not 
be forgiven unto men .... neither in this world, neither 
in the world to come " — is to be taken as a distinct declara- 
tion that all sins, except one, will be forgiven either before 
or after the consummation of the Redeemer's kingdom ; that 
is, in the present, or the future, seon. 

The theory of an eventual extinction of the wicked has 
few adherents among the eminent German theologians. 
Rothe is its principal advocate ; and in his system it is con- 
nected with his peculiar view of the relation of spirit to mat- 
ter, and of the development and immortality of the soul as 
contingent on its own holy action. 

Rothe's elaborate discussion of the topic of Future Pun- 
ishment is found in his posthumous Dogmatih (pp. 132-169, 
291-336). The most of the Saviour's utterances on this sub- 
ject, he asserts, relate to what is to occm* prior to the last 
judgment. At the first glance, Jesus appears to teach the 
endless punishment of all who enter Gehenna. This, how- 
ever, is not the fact. The word aionios (alcovLo^;), which oc- 
curs in Matt. XXV. 41, 46, is used in the Scriptures in a more 
lax sense. It signifies, not an indefinitely long time, but the 
longest time which can belong to an object, in accordance 
with its natm-e. There are many examples of this restricted 
meaning : e. ^., Exod. xxi. 6, Dent. xv. 17. In Jude (ver. 6, 
cf. 2 Pet. ii. 4), a stronger term (at^Sto?), is applied to a ter- 
minable period. As to the opinion of the Jews, in the time 
of Christ, respecting the duration of future punishment, 
they were not agreed on this point ; and if they had been, 
this does not authorize us to conclude that he followed the 



DOCTEINE OF FUTURE PUNISHMENT. 427 

popular view. Eternal life and eternal death are spoken of 
together ; but if " eternal " denotes the longest time which 
the conception, or nature, of an object admits of, that fact 
presents no difficulty. Of the wicked it is only said, in 
Matt. XXV. 41, 46, that "during the continuance of their 
stay in Gehenna^ their pain will not cease, without any de- 
termination of the question whether that stay will, or will 
not, be endless " (p. 138). If Matt. xxvi. 24, Mark xiv. 21 
(cf. Luke xxii. 22) refer to Judas, these expressions are jus- 
tified on the supposition that Judas was eventually to cease 
to exist. The statements of Jesus in Matt. v. 26, xii. 32 (cf. 
Mark iii. 29) oblige us to restrict the sense of aionios. The 
few passages in his teaching, which do not refer to the in- 
termediate state — for to this Rothe applies all those cited 
above, even Matt. xxv. 41, 46 — indicate that the unpardoned 
will gradually be deprived of sense and being : e.g.^ Matt. x. 
28, Luke xii. 5. This opinion was not, Rothe affirms, un- 
known to the Jews : it is expressed in the apocryphal 4th 
Book of Ezra. The terms by which the Apostles denote 
perdition (o oKe^po^; aldovoL^, rj aTrdiXeva, 6 ^dvaTO<;, rj ^^opd) 
most naturally signify annihilation of soul, as well as of 
body ; especially as Paul (Tit. i. 2, Rom. xvi. 25, Eph. iii. 9) 
uses aionios {alaavto^) in the looser sense of the term. Rev. 
xiv. 11, XX. 10, must be understood in the light of Rev. xx. 
14 and xvii. 8. The idea of annihilation is involved in John 
vi. 39, 40, 44, 54, Matt. x. 28, 30, John iii. 15, 16, x. 28, 
Luke xvii. 39, ix. 24, 25, Matt. vii. 13, Phil. i. 28, iii. 19, 
Gal. vi. 8, 1 John iii. 15 (cf. Rev. xx. 4, 5), and 1 John v. 
16, lY, Heb. X. 39, vi. 8, x. 27, 2 Pet. ii. 1, 3, ii. 12, 19, Jude 
10, 12, 19 ; cf. 20, 21, etc. Rotlie (p. 152) presents a concise 
statement of the objections which have been brought, on 
grounds of reason and Christian feeling, to the doctrine of 
endless punishment, and subjects them to criticism. On the 
supposition of a final impenitence in the condemned, eternal 
punishment is fully suited to their guilt. The possibility of 
final impenitence cannot be denied. The end of God, so far 



428 A SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF THE 

as the individual is concerned, may be baffled by his own per- 
versity ; though not the comprehensive end of God in crea- 
tion. Reformation is not the sole — it is not the proper and 
immediate — design of punishment. This has its end in it- 
self. Punishment need not and ought not to cease for the 
reason that the recovery of the transgressor is no longer to 
be hoped for. The pain of the lost may not consist in such 
reproaches of conscience as might involve an actual or possi- 
ble repentance, but rather in the incessant experience of the 
absolute fruitlessness of their rebellion against God, of the 
hostile relation of the whole created universe to them on ac- 
count of this rebellion, and of the rage and hatred against 
God and all his creation, which perpetually blaze up anew 
within their souls. But other objections to the doctrine of 
endless suffering Rothe considers valid. The necessary dis- 
turbance of the happiness of the redeemed, and the divine 
plan of the world, with which the endless continuance of sin 
is held to be incongruous, are among these objections. 'No 
conceivable reason can be given wiiy the hopelessly wicked 
should be kept in being : the notion that their endless suffer- 
ing is required as a warning is groundless. Final impeni- 
tence, on the supposition that the pains of hell are never to 
cease, would be psychologically inexplicable. Yet in this 
life, and in the interval prior to the judgment, all the means 
of grace will have been exhausted upon such as at that time 
remain impenitent. The only satisfactory solution of the 
problem is found in the supposition of a gradual w^earing 
out and extinction of their being. This will be the lot of 
those who persist to the last day in their resistance to the 
Spirit — of those who are guilty of the unpardonable sin. 
Rothe lays great stress on the results to be expected from 
the grace of God, beyond the bounds of this life, in the in- 
termediate state. Among the passages on which he founds 
this expectation, are included, of course, 1 Peter iii. 19, 20, 
iv. 6. 

With the foregoing notice of the opinions of celebrated 



DOCTKINE OF FUTURE PUNISHMENT. 429 

German theologians, we may connect a brief description of 
the views of a distinguished Danish theologian of the evan- 
gelical type, Martensen, as they are expressed in his Dog- 
matik (pp. 534-544). " Shall the development of the world 
end in a dualism ? " Is there an eternal damnation, or a 
final restoration of all moral beings ? The church has never 
been willing to accept this last hypothesis, both on grounds 
of Scripture, and from the feeling that the Christian idea of 
redemption would lose something of its profound earnestness. 
On the contrary, however, the doctrine of restoration, which 
has appeared and reappeared at different times in the church, 
is not without support in the Scriptures, and has sprung up, 
not always from a lack of earnestness, but from a feeling 
of humanity, founded in the very nature of Christianity. 
Here then is an antinomy — a seeming contradiction. 

This antinomy is found in the Scriptures. There are 
passages which, taken in their full weight — '' nach ihrem 
ganzen Gewicht genoimnen " — ^most expressly assert eternal 
damnation. There is " the unquenchable fire," " the worm 
that never dieth," the " sin unto death," the sin that " shall 
not be forgiven." On the other hand, there are 1 Cor. xv. 
26-28, Eph. i. 10, 1 Cor. xv. 22 (cf. Matt. xix. 26), from 
which, unless the force of these expressions is curtailed, the 
notion of a universal restoration cannot be eliminated. That 
God's Word cannot contradict itself and that this antinomy 
must admit of some solution, is conceded. But no solution 
is given. May it not be, asks the author, that the solution 
is wisely withheld from us as long as we are in this stage of 
our being ? 

But the same antinomy, Martensen proceeds to say, 
emerges in our own reasonings on the subject. From the 
point of view, which, to be sure, for Christian reflection, is 
the highest — that of the teleology of divine love, we are led 
to the doctrine of restoration. The end of God in creation, 
does not look, as the Pantheist assumes, at the kingdom in 
general, but at the well-being of each individual. The idea 



430 A SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF THE 

that tlie end is reached in the manifestation of pnnitive jus- 
tice, does not satisfy the mind ; if there is a will which 
eternally withstands God, there is a barrier which the divine 
love never overcomes. The power of love reaches its end, 
not when beings bow the knee by compulsion — which would 
only be a revelation of might — but when all bow the knee 
to Christ with willing consent. On the contrary, the anthro- 
pological, psychological, and ethical considerations, the facts 
of life, lead us to the doctrine of eternal condemnation. Man 
is free ; he is not compelled to repent ; salvation is not a 
process of nature ; the hardening of the heart is possible. 
The time must come when the possibility of conversion is 
gone; when "it is too late." In conversion, not only the 
abstract power is needful, but also the order of things, the 
environing circumstances, in which trial and probation have 
theii' place. For the condemned, there is no future ; there is 
only the retrospect of a lost opportunity, a wasted life. There 
is an inward demand in the soul of the lost for the realiza- 
tion of that which is abstractly possible, while all the condi- 
tions of that realization are wanting. This is " the worm 
that never dieth." Shakespeare has helped us to imagine that 
desperate condition, in such a conception as that of Lady 
Macbeth, wandering about in her sleep, seeking in vain to 
wash the ineffaceable stain of blood from her hand. Here 
is no true, no fi'uitful contrition ; no change of will. 

The theological idea leads us to restoration. Hence this 
doctrine was found mostly in the G-reek Church ; the anthro- 
pological idea tends to the opposite doctrine, which accord- 
ingly was defended by Augustine, and has had fewer to dis- 
sent from it in the Western Church. 

The theory of annihilation does not solve the antinomy. 
This theory is not supported by the Scriptures : it leaves tlie 
fatherly love of God baffled in its aim and end. The idea 
that those guilty of the unpardonable sin serve out their time 
of punishment, and are then delivered, besides the exegeti- 
cal difficulties which lie against it, gives no rational expla- 



DOCTEINE OF FUTURE PUNISHMENT. 431 

nation of the way in wliicli conversion, in such cases, is to be 
secured. For it is not only a right knowledge of sin that is 
required, but the beginning of a new life. 

The antinomy must, therefore, be left standing. There is 
a will of God, and in this sense, a design that all should be 
saved : there is a possibility that such will be the actual fact, 
but the opposite is also possible (p. 643). 

In the annals of English theology, a noted representative 
of the annihilation doctrine is John Locke. In his Reason- 
ableness of Christianity, he shows himself a literalist in his 
interpretation of the word " death." He understands that 
Adam was threatened with the literal destruction of soul and 
body ; that he and his race are saved from this penalty by 
the work of Christ, and put upon a new probation, under 
" the law of faith ; " that those who fail to fulfill the condi- 
tions on which " life " is offered in the Gospel will undergo 
the penalty of annihilation, and will forever cease to be. 

Of the modern English advocates of the doctrine of the ex- 
tinction of souls, the most prominent is Archbishop Whately. 
In his work on The Future State (Lect. viii.) he sets forth 
his opinions. The words translated " destruction," and the 
word " death," as these terms are applied in the Scriptures 
to the lot of the finally impenitent, he takes in the most lit- 
eral meaning. He also maintains the opinion, which was 
occasionally broached in the middle ages, but was counted 
heretical, that the souls of men are in an unconscious state 
during the interval between death and the general resurrec- 
tion. 

In recent times the doctrine of universal restoration has 
been espoused by a number of theologians, of conspicuous 
ability, in England. John Foster is one of the most noted 
of these. His position is, that the endless punishment of 
men for the sins of this life would be inconsistent with the 
equity of the divine administration. He assumes that their 
nature, at the start, is so " fatally corrupt," and their circum- 
stances so unfavorable, that there is no hope for them, save 



432 A SKETCH OF THE HISTOEY OF THE 

in an operation of grace ab extra, which is arbitrary and dis- 
criminative on the part of the sovereign Agent, and inde- 
pendent of the will of man. To the objection that punish- 
ment is endless, because there is an endless continuance in 
sinning, he answers that it is the doom of the condemned 
which " necessitates a continuance of the criminality," for 
this is a doom to sin as well as to suffer. " Yirtually there- 
fore, the eternal punishment is the punishment of the sins 
of time." As to the teaching of Scripture, Foster remarks, 
that the terms " everlasting," " eternal," " forever," original 
or translated, are often employed in the Bible, as well as 
other writings, under great and various limitations of im- 
port. But "how could ih-Q doctrine have been more plainly 
and positively asserted, than it is in the Scripture language ? " 
To this Foster answers, that loe are able to express it so as to 
leave no possibility of a misunderstanding of our language ; 
and this was equally possible to the biblical writers. The 
terms they use are designed to magnify, to aggravate, rather 
than to define the evil threatened. The great difference of 
degrees of future punishment, so plainly stated in the Scrip- 
tures, is said to be an argument of some weight against its 
perpetuity. If a limited measure of punishment is consist- 
ent with equity, then a limited duration may be ; the argu- 
ment from the alleged infinite evil of sin, in one case as 
much as the other, is set aside." 

Another English theologian, whose writings on this sub- 
ject have excited much attention, is the late Eev. F. D. 
Maurice. His opinions are presented in his Commentary on 
John^s Gosjpel, his Theological Essays — the last essay in the 
volume — and in his Letter to Dr. Jelf. In this last publica- 
tion, Mr. Maurice denies that he is a Universalist. Whether 
suffering will be without end in the future life, is a point on 
which he professes himself unable to affirm or deny. His 
position is that of nescience, l^othing, as he thinks, is re- 

* Life and Correspondence of John Foster^ ii., 232 seq. 



DOCTRINE OF FUTURE PUNISHMENT. 433 

vealed with regard to the duration of punishment. The 
word aionios {alojvco^) signifies eternal, and is thought by 
him to have no reference to time. It is applied in the New 
Testament to God and to things extra-temporal. It denotes 
not duration, but a state or quality. " Eternal " death (or 
punishment) is the opposite of " eternal life," as this is de- 
fined by the Apostle John. It is the condition of a soul be- 
reft of the fellowship of God ; but on the question how long 
this state will continue, the word " eternal " sheds no light. 
" Life eternal " is the knowledge of God, and the quality 
termed " eternal " is, in its entirety, in that life now, in the 
case of every one who is possessed of it. 

With respect to the English Episcopal Church, since the 
publication of the Essays and Reviews, the civil courts have 
decided that the Articles do not inculcate the doctrine of 
endless punishment. In the revision of the Articles under 
Elizabeth, when the forty-two were reduced to thirty-nine, 
the forty-second Article, in which eternal punishment had 
been directly asserted, was among those left out. This was 
not because the revisers of the Articles disbelieved the doc- 
trine — a doctrine which would seem to be implied in Art. 
XYII. (Of Predestination and Election) — but it was omitted 
for other reasons. Inasmuch, however, as this tenet had 
once ■ been inserted in the Creed, and had been afterwards 
deliberately omitted, the judicial decision was that clergy- 
men who subscribe to the Articles are not bound to believe 
and teach it. How extensively it has been abandoned in 
the Anglican Church, at the present day, it is impossible to 
judge. A fervid discourse in opposition to it by Canon 
Farrar has lately been put in print. He describes himself 
as having no clear and decisive opinion on the question of 
the duration of future punishment. He cannot accept the 
Romish doctrine of purgatory, or the " spreading belief in 
conditional immortality," or the certain belief that all will 
finally be saved. Yet the final sentences of the sermon ap- 
pear to be an expression of this last-mentioned belief. Dr. 
19 



434 A SKETCH OF THE HISTOEY OF THE 

Farrar holds that aionios {alcovco^;) means " age-long," not 
" everlasting," and in this sense is used in the Bible ; that it 
means, secondly, something extra-temporal ; but that it does 
not contain " the fiction of an endless time." He holds 
that " Gehenna," as used by Christ, indicates, not final and 
hopeless, but purifying and corrective punishment, an 
"intermediate, a metaphorical, and a terminable retribu- 
tion." 

Amon^ the Non-conformists in England, in the evangeli- 
cal bodies, there are many ministers who no longer believe 
in the doctrine of endless punishment. A competent wit- 
ness, Rev. Dr. Allon, in a biographical sketch of Rev. T. 
Binney, prefixed to a volume of his Sermons (London, 
1875), says of him, that "he refused the hard and terrible 
conclusions of Calvinistic predestination." Dr. Allon adds : 

"Be was one of the earliest of his generation to maintain the broad 
universal purpose of the divine Father's love, and of the salvation which 
is proffered through Christ. And, it may be added here, for the same 
reasons he rejected the dogma of eternal punishment; which seems pass- 
ing through the same stages of instinctive shrinking from it, traditional 
affirmation, subtle disintegration, and religious abandonment. While 
Mr. Binney shrank from propounding any alternative theory of the des- 
tiny of the wicked, he distinctly refused to believe in eternal torments. 
He felt that conclusions from which, not in their sinful and alienated 
but in their best and holiest feelings, good men instinctively recoiled 
could not be possible to the holy and loving God. He felt too that it was 
not possible, as with some mysteries which are simply things unknown, 
to bow in silence before these conclusions. They involve a necessary ap- 
peal to moral judgment and feeling, and if in this appeal, repugnance, 
and not sympathetic conviction is produced, there must be reason to 
doubt their correctness. 

" His own conclusion, avowed in many conversations on the subject, was, 
' It cannot be, that which our best feelings shrink from cannot be possi- 
ble to God. In some way or other, he will solve the dark problem of 
evil in harmony with his righteousness and love.' And here he was con- 
tented to rest. Mr. Binney propounded no counter theory of universal- 
ism, or of repentance beyond the grave ; to both he saw, both in the 
statements of Scripture and in the moral philosophy of things, insuper- 
able objections. He thought that the exegesis of Scriptural representa- 
tions needed a thorougft re -examination ; and that a reasonable and rever- 



DOCTRINE OF FUTURE PUNISHMENT. 435 

ent interpretation of the strong language of Scripture was possible whicli 
would not necessitate the dogma of eternal suffering." 

A few ministers of distinction among the English Congre- 
gationalists, but only a few, favor the annihilation doctrine. 

In the letters of Thomas Erskine, of Linlathen, the au- 
thor of the noted work on the Internal Evidence of Revela- 
tion^ the doctrine of universal restoration is professed and 
supported. The main foundation of this belief is made to be 
the fatherly character of God as revealed in the Bible. A 
father can never cease from the endeavor to make his child 
righteous. The Father of the spirits of all flesh will not 
throw off his care for the souls of his children when they 
leave this world ; the supposition that he will, grows out of 
false conceptions of his justice and righteousness, which are 
not separable from his love. E^o human being, it is held 
by Mr. Erskine, can be beyond the reach of God's grace 
and the sanctifying power of his spirit.* The love of God 
will attain to its end and aim. This he supposes to be defi- 
nitely taught by the apostle Paul in the 5th ^nd 11th chap- 
ters of the Epistle to the Romans. f By these full and 
explicit declarations of the apostle, the language in Matt. 
XXV. must be interpreted. " Eternity has nothing to do with 
duration." " I think eternal means essential in opposition to 
phenomenal. So eternal life is God's own life ; it is essen- 
tial life ; and eternal punishment is the misery belonging 
to the nature of sin, and not coming from outward causes." % 
" I do not believe that al(ovco<;, the Greek word rendered 
'eternal' and 'everlasting' by our translators, really has 
that meaning. I believe that it refers to man's essential or 
spiritual state, and not to time, either finite or infinite. 
Eternal life is living in the love of God ; eternal death is 
living in self ; so that a man may be in eternal life or in 
eternal death for ten minutes, as he changes from one state 
to another." § 

* Vol. ii. , p. 343. t P- 239. t P- 135. § P. 240. 



436 A SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF THE 

One of the earliest American works in defence of the 
theory of restoration was The Salvation of all Men Ex- 
amined^ by Dr. Charles Chauncey, which was printed in 
London in 1784. Dr. Chauncey advocates this theory, but 
he maintains that, if it be rejected, the alternative doctrine 
which next to this is best supported, is that of annihilation. 
The " unpardonable sin " is a sin of which the f uU penalty 
is exacted ; but this penalty is not everlasting. The reply 
to Chauncey by Dr. Jonathan Edwards is marked by ex- 
traordinary logical acumen, and by no small degree of acute- 
ness in the exegetical part of the discussion. One promi- 
nent topic in his book is the true nature or end of punish- 
ment in the di\dne government. Edwards argues that the 
penalty of sin in the future life is not disciplinary, but vin- 
dicative in its intent. If it be of the nature of chastisement, 
why is it called a " curse ? " Dr. Chauncey had asserted 
that future punishment is graduated according to the vary- 
ing deserts of offenders. Dr. Edwards charges his opponent 
with a confusion of ideas. If all the condemned are pun- 
ished according to the degree of their guilt, what distinction 
is there between him who suffers for the unpardonable sin, 
and transgressors generally ? 

Since the rise of the Universalist denomination in this 
country, nmnerous works have appeared on the subject be- 
fore us ; but it is impossible, in this place, to refer to them 
individually. 

"We subjoin to the foregoing sketch one or two sugges- 
tions, which may afford material for reflection to those who 
are interested in tracing a theological system to its roots, and 
in observing the transformations which it may undergo in 
the lapse of time. 

Strict Calvinism was a symmetrical and coherent system. 
It was constructed from the teleological point of view. The 
starting-point was God and his eternal purpose. The end 
was made to be the manifestation of his love and his justice, 
conceived of as co-ordinate. The salvation of some, and the 



DOCTRINE OF FUTURE PUNISHMENT. 437 

condemnation of others, are the means to this end. The 
motive of redemption is love to the elect, for whom all the 
arrangements of Providence and grace are ordered. The 
cap-stone was placed upon the system by the supralapsarians, 
who followed Calvin's strong language in the Institutes (but 
not elsewhere, especially not in his Commentaries), and 
made the fall and sin of mankind, like creation itself, the 
object of an efficient decree — means to the one supreme end ; 
for if mercy and righteousness are to be exerted in the sal- 
vation and condemnation of sinners, a world of sinners must 
first exist. 

There was rebellion against this system. !Not to speak of 
the different theology of the Lutherans — in the French Cal- 
vinistic school of Saumur, wherever Arminianism prevailed, 
in the modified Calvinism of the New England churches, it 
was asserted that in " the intention of love," Christ died for 
all, that God's love extends over all, in the sense that he de- 
sires them to be saved, yearns toward them, and offers them 
help. 

This mode of thought has more affinity to the Greek an- 
thropology than has rigid Calvinism, or its Augustinian pro- 
totype. The teleological point of view is less prominent ; it 
stands in the background. The universal love and pity of 
God, the broad design of the atonement, are the central 
points. 

The more rigid Calvinism often protested against this 
modification of the system : it considered the whole theodicy 
imperiled by it : it saw in it a drift and tendency towards 
other innovations subversive of the system. 

For if this is universal, yearning love is at the basis of re- 
demption, will it not be suggested that this love will not fail 
of its end ? Will the heart of God be disappointed of its 
object ? Will the Almighty be baffled by the creaturely 
will ? If Christ died for all, will he be " satisfied " with 
anything short of the recovery of all ? 

As a matter of historical fact, belief in restoration and 



438 SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF FUTURE PUNISHMENT. 

kindred doctrines are seen to spring up, in different quarters, 
in the wake of the mitigated form of theology to which we 
have referred. 

^ot that such beliefs are logically required. All d priori 
reasoning must be subject to the correction of experience. 
There is a terrible reign of sin, though all sin is contrary to 
the will of God ; there is a development of sinful charac- 
ter, a hardening of the heart, a persistent resistance — " how 
often would / . . . . but ye would not ; " '' woe mito thee, 
Chorazin, woe unto thee, Bethsaida ; " there is a stern, trag- 
ic side to nature and to human life. We stand within a 
sphere where results are not worked out by dint of power, 
but where freedom, under moral law, with all the peril, as 
well as possibility of good, which fi-eedom involves, is an es- 
sential attribute of om* being. Xo speculations on the prob- 
lem of the theodicy can have the certainty that belongs to 
the law which is verified by conscience and experience: 
" Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." 



RATIONALISM. 439. 



RATIONALISM.* 

At the threshold of all enlightened investigation of reli- 
gious truth stands the question, What are the sources of 
knowledge on the subject? On this first and fundamental 
question, opinion is divided. We may leave out of the 
account, for the present, the Eastern Church, which has now 
for a thousand years exhibited few signs of intellectual 
life, and these mostly in the shape of occasional outbreak- 
ings of polemical fervor against its great rival in the West, 
Proud of its illustrious teachers of the patristic age — Chry- 
sostom, the Gregories, Basil, Athanasius — and of those an- 
cient councils which are alone regarded as oecumenical, the 
Greek Church haughtily denies the claim of the Roman 
bishop to more than a titular and honorary precedence, yet 
agrees with the Latins in recognizing tradition and church 
authority. Turning to Western Christendom, we find three 
parties in reference to the question already stated — the 
Roman Catholic, the evangelical Protestant, and the 
Rationalist. 

The Roman Catholic and the Protestant have common 
ground. They both acknowledge a supernatural, divine 
revelation. They both admit an authoritative teaching, ob- 
jective, or outside of the individual. They both profess 
that all this teaching, all of Christian truth that has been 
revealed from heaven, is to be traced back to Christ and his 
apostles. It is only since the Reformation, to be sure, that 
the Roman Catholic Church has thus limited its doctrine of 
tradition. In the middle ages, tenets were in some instances 

* A Lecture in Boston in 1870, forming part of a Course of Lectures by 
different persons, on " Christianity and Skepticism." 



440 EATIONALISM. 

attributed to a post-apostolic revelation. This is done, for 
example, by Gerson, in the case of the Virgin's Immaculate 
Conception and the Assumption ; and by Occam in respect 
to the dogma of Transubstantiation, But the prevailing 
and established theory now is, that the tradition which is 
the supplement of Scripture includes only apostolic teaching 
orally transmitted. The church defines the faith ; discerns 
more and more of its meaning, and promulgates what it 
discerns, but adds nothing to, the original deposit. But the 
Roman Catholic interposes, between the individual and 
Christ, the church ; that is, the visible body organized 
under the hierarchy of which the Roman bishop is the head. 
This is the radical, defining characteristic of their system. 
In keeping with it, the church is held to be at once the in- 
fallible custodian and infallible interpreter of both Scripture 
and tradition — the written and the oral teachings of Christ 
and the apostles. This last position, together with the the- 
ory of the church that underlies it, the evangelical Prot- 
estant rejects. He may allow that the oral teaching of the 
apostles, if we could get at it, would be as authoritative as 
their writings ; but he denies that any safe and sure channel 
has been provided for its transmission. And, even as to 
Scripture, he denies that the chm^ch in any age is an unerr- 
ing expounder. Hence ail that part of the Roman Catholic 
creed which he cannot find confirmed in the Scriptures he 
discards. Tenets, which, if they claim any support fi'om the 
Bible, rest on alleged obscure intimations of Scripture, are 
not admitted to be a part of the Christian faith. There is 
truth in the well-known aphorism, '' The Bible, the Bible, 
is the religion of Protestants ! " It is perfectly consistent 
with this position to hold that the logical implications of 
the primitive teaching are more and more unfolded to view 
in the progress of society ; that the ethics of the Gospel are 
developed in new directions and applications ; that Christian 
life is a commentary on Christian truth. We may allow 
some grains of truth in the mystical and ideal conception 



RATIONALISM. 441 

of the church's authority which Mohler and other liberal 
Catholics have undertaken to propound ; but, when all rea- 
sonable concessions have been made, there remains a radical 
antagonism. 

The distinguishing note of rationalism is the rejection of 
authoritative teaching, the disbelief in supernatural revela- 
tion. Whatever special view he may take of the Bible — 
whether he adopt the low estimate of Thomas Paine, who 
said that he could write a better book himself ; or the higher 
estimate of those who pronounce it a lofty product of human 
genius — the Rationalist denies that the Bible is in any 
proper sense the rule of faith. The prophets and apostles 
teach with no authority that does not belong to them in 
common with all poets and philosophers and preachers. 
There is nothing properly miraculous either in the origin of 
their doctrine, or in the evidences that support it. This is 
the common ground of rationalism in all of its various 
types. The Atheist, the Pantheist, and the Deist unite in 
this negation of the supernatural as connected with the origin 
of Christianity and the Christian system of doctrine. 

I am aware, that, in so general a classification, there must 
be embraced under the term rationalism dissimilar phases 
of character and opinion. There are Rationalists in fact, 
but not in spirit. If there is positive and downright infi- 
delity at one extreme, there is an approach to faith at the 
other. There are men — a numerous class in these days — 
who can believe only as they can assimilate religious truth ; 
who seek for it, therefore, with an earnest heart, though 
under a cloud of doubt. Could they discern the harmony 
of Christian truth with their intellectual and moral nature, 
could they set this truth in a close and vital relation to the 
soul, they would be satisfied. This immediate, living per- 
ception is what they most crave. For such, as we may hope 
to indicate, there is a way out of their present position. 
"Were the principle of division some other than the one we 

have chosen — which is the position taken with reference to 
19* 



442 RATIONALISM. 

the sources of knowledge — they might fall into a different 
category; but, as long as their criterion for judging and 
ascertaining what is true in religion remains a purely subjec- 
tive one, they adopt the distinctive rationalistic principle. 

Modern scepticism and mibelief, or the whole movement 
which in its different phases and stages is termed rational- 
ism, is often charged by Roman Catholic theologians npon 
Protestantism. It is unjustly declared to be the legiti- 
mate fruit of the Reformation. The ancient foes of Chris- 
tianity in the field of thought — Celsns, Lucian, Porphyry, 
and the rest — were heathen writers, standing outside of the 
church. In the mediseval age, scepticism came mostly from 
the Arabic schools in Spain, and was prevented from gain- 
ing a foothold through the efforts of Aquinas and other 
great teachers of the thirteenth century. But before the 
Reformation, through the disgust that arose against the 
scliolastic theology, and through the influence of classical 
and literary studies connected with the revival of learning, 
widespread tendencies to scepticism had become rife in the 
southern nations of Europe. Neander, in an essay read be- 
fore the Berlin Academy, quotes a remarkable sentence 
from a letter of Melanchthon, in which the keen-sighted re- 
former says that far more serious disturbances {longe gram- 
ores turiiultus) would have ensued had not Luther arisen to 
turn the studies of men in a new direction. The Reforma- 
tion was a powerful religious movement, which was strong 
enough to stifle the germs of scepticism far and wide, and 
which made itself felt with most wholesome results within the 
Catholic Church itself. The rise of men like Fenelon and 
the Jansenists must be ascribed to the indirect agency of 
the Protestant Revolution ; but the humanistic spirit, vdth 
the sceptical turn that accompanied it among the Latin 
nations, continued in France. In the seventeenth century, 
if Luther's Bible was the popular book in Germany, Plu- 
tarch's Lives had a like place in France ; and the spirit to 



RATIONALISM. 443 

which I have referred found expression in the genial scepti- 
cism of Montaigne. Without doubt, the decline of relig- 
ion in the Protestant churches, the incessant controversies 
among them, and especially the partial sacrifice of the Prot- 
estant spirit of liberty in a partisan zeal for creeds, must 
bear a portion of the responsibility for the infidel reaction 
that followed. The Protestant scholasticism of the seven- 
teenth century had an effect like that of the Catholic scho- 
lasticism of the fourteenth. But the deism of the last cen- 
tury found the most welcome reception in France. Yoltaire 
was not bred a Protestant. Owing to causes, among which 
the degeneracy of Protestantism as compared with the spirit 
of piety and freedom that belonged to it at the outset was 
one, deism obtained a foothold in Germany and England, 
as well as in the Catholic countries. As Neander truly 
remarks, the spirit that characterized deism, if logical, and 
consistent with itself, must lead to the rejection of the 
supernatural altogether. Pantheism, which identifies God 
with Nature, is, therefore, the natural successor of deism ; 
although the forms which pantheism took were due to the 
course of philosophical speculation of which they were the 
immediate product. At the present time, scepticism and 
unbelief are far from being confined to Protestant lands. 
Penan is the name most frequently coupled with that of 
Strauss. Wherever there is intellectual activity in Catholic 
countries, scepticism, either hidden or avowed, is prevalent. 
We have seen lately in Spain how the hatred of the eccle- 
siastical system of the Roman Catholic Church takes the 
form of a rejection, and even denunciation, of all revealed 
religion. 

Evangelical Protestantism puts no tyrannical yoke upon 
reason. It does not concede that any contrariety exists be- 
tween the Christian faith and reason. When Augustine 
affirmed that faith precedes knowledge, he meant that 
Christianity is a practical system, adapted to practical ne- 



444 RATIONALISM. 

cessities of the soul, and must, therefore, be applied or ex- 
perienced before it can be comprehended. It is a case 
where insight follows upon life ; where one must taste and 
see: but that good reasons can be given for the act of 
Christian consecration in the soul, and good evidence in be- 
half of the truth that is then received, he, and the school- 
men who followed him in this religious philosophy, fully be- 
lieved. It was the maxim of Socrates and Plato even, that 
men must be improved before they can be instructed. Pas- 
cal was not a sceptic in his philosophy, as some of his crit- 
ics have charged: he maintained that faith is reasonable, 
though not reached by a chain of reasoning ; and this be- 
cause it is an act of the soul, conformed to higher intuitions. 
Hume, Gibbon, and other free-thinkers of the last century, 
caricatured the position of Christian theology, when they 
ironically, with " the grave and temperate irony," which 
Gibbon says that he learned from The Provincial Letters^ 
spoke of the truths of religion as received by faith alone, in 
the absence of, or in the face of, unanswerable arguments. 
What, then, in the view of the evangelical Protestant, is 
the place of reason ? First, he allows and claims for the 
human soul a native recognition, however obscure it may 
have become through sin, of the verities of natural religion 
— God, freedom, accountableness, immortality. Secondly, 
he concedes the necessity of establishing the supernatural 
origin of the gospel, and of the mission of Christ, by com- 
petent evidence. Christ and the apostles, in preaching to 
Jews, naturally took for granted that groundwork of relig- 
ious beliefs which was accepted by their hearers. They 
had only to evince that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah. 
Yet it is remarkable how frequently in the discourses of 
Christ — how habitually, it might be said — an appeal is 
made directly to the moral and spiritual nature. How con- 
stant is the recognition of those primary convictions which 
are inwrought into the soul by its Maker! He rebukes 
men who can predict the weather from signs in the sky for 



RATIONALISM. 445 

not interpreting aright the signs of the times, and for not 
deducing from phenomena that fell nnder their own obser- 
vation the proper inference ; and he adds to this censure 
the memorable words, " Yea, and why, even of yourselves, 
judge ye not what is right ? " In preaching to the heathen, 
the apostles argued the case. They set forth the truths of 
natural religion, which the heathen in part acknowledged ; 
and then they proceeded to establish by testimony the facts 
of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. It was, 
throughout, an appeal to the intelligence of their auditors. 
So it has been since among all considerate defenders of the 
Christian faith, as the copious library of Apologies will 
bear witness. Thirdly, it is requisite to investigate the 
question of the authorship of the books which enter into 
the canon, wherever honest doubts arise on the subject. 
The authority of the church on this point a consistent 
Protestant cannot admit. The church, as an historical 
witness, is entitled to speak. The reception, by the early 
church, of books as apostolic, is certainly a strong, and in 
many cases a conclusive, argument in favor of so regarding 
them ; but the church, like other witnesses, must submit to 
be cross-examined. We discard from the Old Testament 
canon the so-called apocryphal books, because we know from 
ancient testimony that they formed no part of the Scrip- 
tures that were used by Christ and the apostles — no part of 
the Hebrew canon ; and we charge the Church of Rome 
with being uncritical in incorporating them into the Eible, 
and pronouncing them, as it does in the Creed of Trent, a 
part of Holy Scripture. Jerome taught the reformers, on 
this matter, what Augustine with his defective scholarship 
did not know. But the Protestant is equally bound not to 
shrink from the investigation of the New Testament canon 
whenever he is fairly challenged to this work. Thus in the 
fourth century, as Eusebius tells us, there were several 
books in regard to which the church was divided in opin- 
ion ; some regarding them as apostolic, and others taking 



446 RATIONALISM. 

the opposite view. At this time, zeal for uniformity was 
stronger than zeal for independent study ; and the doubtful 
questions were disposed of without much inquiry. At an 
earlier day, the state of things was different ; for there did 
not exist in the second century that indifference to the gen- 
uineness of books, and ready credulity, which Strauss and 
many other infidel writers falsely attribute to the early 
church. But the church of the fourth and fifth centuries, 
on these particular questions to which I have referred, was 
rather uncritical. Not that the doubt which Eusebius re- 
ports is at all conclusive against the books in question ; but 
it is one sufficient reason, if there were no other, why there 
should be candid and fearless investigation : and so Luther 
and the first reformers held. For the settlement of the 
canon the enlightened Protestant will demand historical 
testimony, in the shape both of internal evidence and ex- 
ternal authentication, of such a nature as to convince the 
unbiassed judgment. Fourthly, he admits that no amount 
of evidence can justify belief in propositions that are either 
self -contradictory, or in conflict with known truth. He ad- 
mits, that, if such doctrines were to be found in the Bible, 
it would so far detract from the authority of the book, and 
might disprove the supernatural origin of the Christian sys- 
tem. But, just here, the evangelical Protestant interposes 
a protest against the rash, superficial, and sometimes flip- 
pant assertion, that doctrines are irrational because they are 
in some respects mysterious, or because they clash with 
somebody's scheme of philosophy. There has been an in- 
finite amount of confident but shallow denial of Christian 
doctrine on grounds which a change in the reigning phi- 
losophy renders obsolete. Rationalism may often be left to 
confute itself. For example, the old Kantian Rationalism, 
which, in common vdth the Anglo-French Deism that went 
before, cast out the doctrines, which, like the Trinity, it 
could not square with its own preconceived ideas, was, for 
this very reason, treated by Hegel and his associates of the 



KATIONALISM. 447 

speculative school with great contempt. The professors 
who had supposed themselves to have reduced Christianity 
to a rational system, by eliminating mysteries and trying 
everything by the touchstone of common-sense, found them- 
selves charged by the more advanced school with a deplor- 
able want of philosophical grasp. Theories of religion and 
philosophy which are easij^ which present no hard prob- 
lems, no unanswered questions, no vistas that the eye can- 
not explore, find ready credence for a while ; but they are 
short-lived, because flat and insufficient. A " Christianity 
not mysterious " can take but a feeble hold of the convic- 
tions of men. Fifthly, the evangelical Protestant is free in 
the interpretation of the Bible. He is bound to no view of 
a passage simply because it is traditional. Whatever light 
antiquarian and philological study may throw on the pages 
of the Bible, he is thankfully to accept. The text, the 
translation, the exegesis, are fixed by no authority which 
supersedes the exercise of private judgment. Protestant- 
ism, on the one hand, vindicates the importance of learning 
as an aid in the interpretation of the Scriptures; and, on 
the other hand, asserts for the humblest individual, provi- 
ded he be endued with an honest heart, the power of arriv- 
ing at the general sense of the Bible, and of attaining the 
knowledge that is requisite for the guidance of life and the 
attainment of salvation. 

The true relation of philosophy to faith, of reason to 
revelation, it is not difficult to define. Philosophy was 
styled by Anselm the ancilla, or handmaid of religion. The 
office of philosophy was conceived by the schoolmen to be 
that of elucidating and establishing the contents of faith. 
The truth which faith lays hold of, reason demonstrates. 
This did not, of necessity, imply a degradation of philoso- 
phy ; since the schoolmen, one and all, held that faith has 
an independent root of its own in our moral and spiritual 
nature, and is, in the highest sense, reasonable. But the 



448 EATIONALISM. 

limited scope allowed to philosophical investigation, without 
doubt, hampered its development. With Descartes the new 
era began. It was recognized that philosophy may and 
must start with the data of consciousness, and erect its own 
structure with entire independence ; taking nothing for 
granted, and borrowing nothing from other branches of 
knowledge. And here we come to the precise distinction 
between philosophy and Christian theology, and, by conse- 
quence, to the real relations of reason and faith. Chris- 
tianity is an historical religion. Unlike the philosopher, 
the theologian proceeds on the basis of historical facts. 
These facts — the life, miracles, death, resurrection, of Christ 
— constitute the starting-point of theology. We know that 
a sound philosophy must harmonize with them, or find 
room for them, because we know that they are well attested, 
and truth is not in conflict with itself. When, therefore, a 
new scheme of philosophy is broached which is incompati- 
ble with the Christian faith, we conclude that it must be to 
that extent false. Yet an inquisitive Christian mind will 
not be satisfied until it has detected the particular fallacies 
and errors which enter into such a system : in other words, 
it will not be satisfied fully until a theoretical has been ad- 
ded to the practical refutation of it. For example, the Ger- 
man philosophers after Kant, inspired largely by Spinoza, 
brought forward pantheistic systems claiming to solve all 
problems, and explain the universe. These systems involve 
the denial of a supernatural revelation, because they deny 
the supernatural altogether ; and, of course, they rule out 
the facts of Christianity. This was clearly seen when 
Strauss applied the Hegelian principles to the discussion of 
the gospel history, and when Baur did the same with refer- 
ence to the origin of Christianity and of the ~Kew Testament 
writings. It is plain, that when the facts, the reality of 
which is thus impugned, are established, the philosophy at 
variance with them is overthrown ; yet the confutation is 
not radical and complete until the philosopher is met on his 



RATIONALISM. 449 

own ground, and convicted of unfounded assumptions or 
reasonings. Then liis edifice is subverted from the founda- 
tion. The generality of Christians are not called upon to 
undertake such a work : it belono:s to thinldns; and educated 
men. There is many a spectre in regard to which the un- 
learned Christian has a right to say, when it crosses his 
path, " Thou art a scholar, Horatio : speak to it ! " 

If rationalism is taken in the broad sense, in which it is 
equivalent to disbelief in revelation, it is found in three forms 
— atheism, pantheism, and deism; atheism being, for the 
most part, an explicit or disguised materialism. The criti- 
cal attacks on the Scriptures, dating from Semler, would 
form properly a distinct chapter in the history of rational- 
ism ; yet, as they have sprung from a philosophical princi- 
ple or bias, they might be placed imder the head of deism 
or pantheism. The rationalistic critics of the school .of 
Kant belong under the former head ; those of the school of 
Hegel, under the latter. It is not my purpose to treat the 
subject historically, but to characterize briefly types of ra- 
tionalism which now present themselves to observation. 

First, there are those systems which utterly deny or 
ignore the religious nature of man. The most prominent 
of them is the so-called positive philosophy, in the form in 
which it was propounded by its founder. Mr. J. S. Mill 
maintains that either theism or atheism may be held in 
consistency with positivist principles. This position, M. 
Littre, the leading disciple of Comte, earnestly combats. 
Comte was himself an atheist. This is the proper inference 
from the doctrines of his system. Religion is declared to be 
an excrescence upon human nature ; or, rather, it is one of 
those fancies or delusions which belong to the childhood of 
the race, and vanish with the development of intelligence. 
Comte makes the incredible mistake of looking for the 
prime origin of religion in an effort of the understanding to 
explain the phenomena of Nature. Religion he makes the 



450 RATIONALISM. 

result of the personifying instinct, which at the outset en- 
dues all things with personal life. The errors involved in 
his famous generalization, according to which mankind pass 
through the successive stages of religion, metaphysics, and 
positivism, have been frequently exposed. We are con- 
cerned at this moment with the stupendous mistake which 
he commits of ignoring the relation which religion has to 
conscience and the deepest feelings of the soul. One would 
think that a simple survey of the operation of religion in the 
world, the mighty power it has exercised in human society, 
the wide space it fills in human history, would be sufficient 
to convince a man that it arises from native, profound, ine- 
radicable sentiments and tendencies of the soul. Even the 
evil that religion, when unenlightened, has caused in the 
world — the strife and bloodshed and misery — might teach 
one that the principle or sentiment from the abuse of which 
all these baleful effects grow is an indestructible element of 
human nature ; otherwise the poet would not have had oc- 
casion to write the familiar words — 

*' Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum." 

Keligion is rather to be compared, in the source and ex- 
tent of its influence, with the social tendency. Some who 
have called themselves philosophers have said that society is 
artificial ; the natural condition of man being that of seclu- 
sion and solitude, and social existence being a device to avoid 
certain inconveniences, and secure certain comforts. This 
theory, if it ever found serious acceptance, was long ago 
given up. It is acknowledged that the individual by him- 
self is not complete ; that we are naturally, as well as by 
grace, members one of another. Solitude is, therefore, one 
of the shortest roads to the mad-house. The marvellous 
gift of language, the instrument of social intercourse, is the 
testimony of nature that we exist for this end ; for it is 
hardly probable that this w^onderful power was given us 



EATIONALISM. 451 

that we might hidulge in soliloquies. Place a human being 
in utter solitude ; suppose him to be ignorant that other be- 
ings like himself exist : the sense of loneliness, the vague 
but intense craving for social converse, the deep yearning of 
his soul, testify that he is out of his element, that he has lost 
a part of his being. There is a nisiis, an unfulfilled exertion, 
a searching, unresting desire. So it is in respect to religion. 
The state of a man without religion, without God, is similar. 
Our belief in God does not appear at first in the form of a 
deduction, in the form of a proposition, but in the form of 
trust, reverence, fear, gratitude, supplication — in the form of 
dependence and obligation ; in the same way that the social 
instinct makes itself manifest in the child reaching out and 
groping for, another. Psychology is too often defective in 
failing to state, or even to consider, the propensities of the 
spiritual nature, on which, after all, human experience and 
history so much depend. The evidences or arguments for 
the being of God call out and meet an inward testimony of 
the soul, of the character which I have indicated. There is 
an inward nisus^ as in the eye when in quest of light. There 
is a gravitating of the soul towards the being who reveals 
himself in the consciousness and in the law that is written 
on the heart. Men like Pascal have been called sceptics, 
only because they found belief, not on external proofs, but 
on the intuitions of the spirit. 

It cannot be denied that those systems which are allied 
in spirit to positivism — whether their advocates call Comte 
their master, or, abjuring him, claim to be followers of 
Hiune, or to follow nobody— have strong affinities, not to 
say a logical relationship, with materialism and atheism. 
Mr. Herbert Spencer holds to the relativity of knowl- 
edge — the sceptical doctrine which comes down from the 
sophists, that nothing is known as it is in itself ; that is, that 
nothing is truly known — and from this assumption he de- 
duces the corollary that God is utterly unknown. What he 
or it is, it is impossible to say. But religion is the commu- 



452 EATIONALISM. 

nion of man with a personal being ; and, if God cannot be 
affirmed to be a person, religion is no more. Mr. Huxley, 
giving to albumen, the old term for the material substance 
that enters into living beings, the name of " protoplasm," 
avows his belief that what we call the soul is the product of 
a certain disposition of material molecules. But then " mat- 
ter " itself is said to be only a name for states of conscious- 
ness ; and the same is true of " spirit." Matter and spirit 
are identified in a sort of monism that denies both, or as- 
serts both to be phenomenal. Bj this unexpected turn, he 
saves himself fi-om the open assertion of what Sir William 
Hamilton likes to call the "dirt philosophy" — the philos- 
ophy, namely, which teaches that the rational soul is made 
of dirt, or that both are of one substance. Mr. Huxley pro- 
fesses to build on Hume. He speaks of metaphysics in a 
tone of supercilious contempt ; yet, like the rest of the ex- 
treme empirical school, he is unable to find a basis for in- 
duction, or any real validity for the generalizations of his 
own science. He raises the question. How can we predict 
the future ? how can we know from our past experience that 
the next stone we throw into the air will descend to the 
earth? Casting away all metaphysical theories, he pro- 
ceeds to assign two reasons ; First, all the stones that have 
been thrown up have fallen. But the question is. How can 
we infer from this fact that the same thing will happen ? 
On what ground can we infer the future from the past ? 
Plainly, he does not advance an inch in solving the ques- 
tion. His second ground is equally remarkable : we have 
no reason to the contrary, but every reason to expect that it 
will fall ; that is to say, we believe that the stone will fall 
for the reason that there is every reason to expect it will ! 
In this peculiar style does our great foe of metaphysics 
handle a philosophical question. And yet, in his o^vn de- 
partment of investigation, he is an able observer and a 
learned man. Mr. Mill is not so unwary ; still, in his oppo- 
sition to an a jjriori and spiritual philosophy, and in his 



RATIONALISM. 453 

zeal for tlie empirical tendency, lie barely saves himself from 
pronouncing tlie human mind merely a series of sensations ; 
he offers no explanation of the way in which he can know 
that any other being exists but himself, and can find no 
theory of induction which does not involve a plain paralo- 
gism. 

In the field of history, the empirical school has found a 
representative in Buckle — a writer who has dipped into a 
multitude of books, but brings to his ambitious enterprise 
no thoroughness of learning in any single department ; who 
starts with the principle, that every new fact is the necessary 
product of antecedent facts, and that both Providence and 
free-will are a delusion, and count for nothing. The ma- 
chinery of physical laws, either material or intellectual, takes 
the place of personal agency. History is a drama where 
the actors are automatons, and through which runs no divine 
purpose. All that gives interest and pathos to the story of 
human affairs vanishes at the touch of this pretentious but 
contracted philosophy. It is pleasant to hear the masters of 
historical study on the Continent, as De Tocqueville in 
France and Droysen in Germany, utter their warm protest 
against the narrow theory of Buckle, to say nothing of the 
inaccuracies of his narrative. On both these points, the ul- 
timate verdict of all considerate scholars will be the same. 

Secondly, there are those — many of whom are not to be 
reckoned under the class last named — who deny the miracles 
of Christianity. This unbelief must be traced ultimately to 
a want of faith in a supernatural order. It springs from a 
lurking scepticism respecting the primal truths of religion, 
which may yet be received through the force of a traditional 
impression. But the disbelief in miracles belongs to many 
who have not abandoned the belief in a personal God, and 
have no thought of questioning the truth that man has a 
rational soul. There is a deistic as well as a pantheistic 
infidelity. The Epicurean view of the universe, in which 
the Deity, though admitted to exist, is kept aloof from the 



454 EATIONALISM. 

world, and not allowed to concern himself in human affairs, 
much less to interpose supernaturally, is not wholly banished 
from the world. The real alternative is atheism or panthe- 
ism on the one hand, and Christianity on the other ; but 
this is not at once perceived. 

That the apostles testified to the miracles recorded in the 
New Testament, that they could not be deceived, and were 
not liars, is a position which all the modern assaults of scep- 
tical criticism have left unshaken. The impregnable char- 
acter of this position is every day becoming more manifest. 
It was admitted by Strauss, Baur, and their associates, that 
the apostles testified to the resurrection of Jesus ; but Strauss 
would fain establish the point, that they did not thus testify 
to the other miracles described in the Gospels. The early 
date of the synoptical Gospels absolutely precludes the sup- 
position oi Strauss. If the resurrection is counted a myth, 
no possible explanation of the origin of it can be given, un- 
less, at the same time, it is supposed that the disciples had 
witnessed such miracles before as would account for their 
expecting it as a possible and probable event. But, if the 
prior miracles are credited, there is no longer a motive for 
seeking to resolve the resurrection into a delusive vision or 
dream of fancy. Moreover, it is evident that the miracles 
are so intertwined in the life of Jesus with his words and 
actions, that no consistent conception of that life, as it went 
on from day to day, can be formed in case the miracles are 
excluded. Deny the miracles, and you cannot explain the 
disciples' belief that Jesus was the Messiah ; you cannot ex- 
plain his own undoubted words in consistency with the hy- 
pothesis that he was honest ; and you cannot explain the 
narratives which embody the testimony of eye-witnesses. 
It is remarkable that the leading advocates of the mythical 
hypothesis have felt obliged to give up, to a great extent, their 
favorite theory, and to resort to the hypothesis of a conscious 
deception by the Isew Testament authors, whom they unsuc- 
cessfully strive to bring down into an age later than the apos- 



RATIONALISM. 455 

tolic. Renan, too, is forced to adopt the notion of a pious 
fraud on the part of the founder of Christianity and his 
chosen disciples, because he cannot escape from the fact of 
contemporaneous testimony to the miracles, which yet his 
narrow philosophy cannot allow. It is very characteristic of 
the whole method and spirit of Kenan, that he should re- 
quire, as an indispensable condition of faith, the performance 
of miracles at Paris before a council of savans. The moral 
relations of a miracle, apart from its character as an act of 
power, he seems utterly to overlook. He might as reasona- 
bly ask, that before believing in the facts recorded by Euse- 
bius of the devoted heroism and endurance of Christian 
women and children, who, in the Roman persecutions, died 
for the faith, some persons of like condition should consent 
to go through the same sufferings before a French commis- 
sion : not that the evidence by which miracles must be es- 
tablished is the same in kind and degree (this is not the 
point) ; but, in both cases, the events are such as occur 
under the proper moral conditions and surroundings. 

It may be said, generally, that, of all the recent writers 
upon the Gospel history, there is no one who makes greater 
pretentions to critical impartiality than Renan ; and yet 
there is no one who is more obviously under the sway of sub- 
jective standards and prepossessions. One of his principal 
objections to the discourses of Jesus recorded in John is, 
that they do not suit his taste ; which reminds one of the 
lines w^hich Goethe puts into the mouth of the old Rational- 
ist Bahrdt — 

"Ein Gedanke kommt mirungefahr — 
So red'te Ich wenn Ich Christus war'."* 

But even Renan involves himself, by his concessions, in a 
dilemma, where he is forced either to admit the miracle, or 

* " Up comes a thought I did not seek — • 
If 1 were Christ, thus would I speak." 



456 RATIONALISM. 

to impeach the truthfulness of the founder of Christianity 
and his chosen disciples. 

The whole course of sceptical criticism, if attentively fol- 
lowed, is seen to be leading really to the inevitable conclu- 
sion, which will be at length extorted from reluctant minds, 
that the miraculous events which are set down in the Gos- 
pels actually took place. 

Thirdly, there are those who admit the historical truth of 
miracles and the fact of revelation, but deny that the Scrip- 
tures are inspired. A distinction is to be made between 
revelation and inspiration. It is quite possible to hold that 
Jesus performed miracles, and rose from the dead ; to hold 
that God, who at sundry times and in divers ways spoke 
unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days 
spoken unto us by his Son ; and, at the same time, to disbe- 
lieve that supernatural guidance was given to the minds of 
the sacred writers. They were left, it may be said, to com- 
prehend and interpret the revelation by the unaided light 
of their own understanding. This is not an infidel position : 
it admits fully the supernatural origin of the gospel ; it al- 
lows that the great transactions occurred which constitute 
the historic basis of revealed religion. God has made him- 
self known to men otherwise than in the stated order of 
nature ; but the view to which I refer leaves us no author- 
ized interpretation of the facts — no surety that the prophets 
and apostles did not mistake their import : it leaves, in a 
word, no authoritative teaching. Whatever varying forms 
the doctrine of inspiration may assume from the hyper- 
orthodox view, that the words are dictated, down through all 
the grades of opinion, evangelical Protestantism holds and 
cannot surrender the tenet that the Bible is somehow the 
rule of faith. There is an objective standard — not one, if 
you please, that dispenses with the need of study, of com- 
paring Scripture with Scripture, of considering the circum- 
stances of each writer, of having regard to the progressive 
character of the revelation — but still an objective standard, 



RATIONALISM. 457 

exalted above the conjectures and speculations of the indi- 
vidual — a divine testimony — an umpire to end the strife. 
Inspiration is the means to this end. Christ told his follow- 
ers that they would, after his death, understand what they 
could not comprehend before ; they would be guided to a 
true interpretation of what they could not explain in his 
life and death ; they should be led into all truth in regard 
to him. He directed them, when they should be arraigned 
before hostile magistrates, not to hunt up arguments and 
devise rejoinders, but they should -have given them what 
they should say. Intuition, under the illumination of the 
Spirit, would supersede contrivance. In short, they were 
to be, and were qualified to be, competent expositors of the 
Gospel ; and their teaching was to have a normal authority ; it 
was to be the supplement and further unfolding of his own 
divine instruction. Inspiration, therefore, is a truth concern- 
ing which the evangelical Protestant cannot be indifferent ; 
it being the source and safeguard of authoritative teaching. 

Rationalism, through all of its numerous and conflicting 
schools, affirms the full competency of the human mind to 
discover religious truth for itself. Underneath the rational- 
istic creed there lies this principal assumption. The great 
fact that is overlooked is the fact of sin, and the influence 
of sin upon all parts of human nature. The truth that hu- 
man nature is not in its normal condition, and that sin has 
darkened the perceptions of the soul, is avowedly or uncon- 
sciously set aside. The Pelagian theory lies at the root of ra- 
tionalism : this lies at the bottom of its denial of the need 
of external authoritative instruction, of an enlightening and 
quickening influence upon the mind from without. The 
consequences that flow respectively fi*om the acknowledg- 
ment and the virtual denial of the Christian doctrine of sin 
can hardly be overstated. This doctrine is the one great 
postulate of the gospel : " They that are whole need not a 
physician, but they that are sick." It affirms, against Mani- 
20 



468 RATIONALISM. 

cligeism and dualism in whatever form, that moral evil be- 
longs to the human, creaturely will, and comes not from the 
Creator; but, with equal earnestness, it asserts the deep and 
universal dominion of evil among men. There has been a 
separation of mankind from God. We behold a state of 
things which compels us either to deny that evil is, and to 
call evil good, or to assume a mysterious catastrophe, of 
which revealed religion itself gives, and professes to give, 
but an imperfect explanation. But, whatever mysteries 
hang over the origin of sin, two things are certain : one is 
our personal responsibility for what we are in character — a re- 
sponsibility to which conscience, the highest witness, clearly 
testifies ; the other is the baleful effect of sin, not only on 
society, not only on the pursuits and purposes of the individ- 
ual, but also on the spiritual perceptions. It is a depart- 
ment where the bent of the wdll affects the perception of 
the intellect ; where mind and heart share a common disas- 
ter. Plow is it possible to look abroad on the world, and 
see what men are, even when placed under the most favor- 
able conditions ; to review the course of history, and notice 
what men have done — their conduct to one another, their 
governments, their literature, their amusements, their social 
customs, their religions even — how is it possible for one to 
look within himself, and interrogate his own soul, and not 
acknowledge this great fact of sin — acknowledge that a 
malady has infected mankind, differing from any other dis- 
ease only in this, that it emanates from the will, and in- 
volves guilt ? How is it possible to ignore a fact which all 
deep-thinking men, heathen or Christian, have united in de- 
ploring — a fact which Seneca declares almost in the lan- 
guage of Paul ? The human mind, as an organ for the dis- 
cernment of God and divine things, is not in the condition 
in which it would be, had sin not perverted its powers. 
Yague and doubtful apprehensions need to be enlivened 
and confirmed by the voice of One who speaks as one hav- 
ing authority. It is not truth alone that the human soul 



RATIONALISM. 459 

needs, but redemption through One who is himself the 
truth. But communications of truth respecting God, and our 
relations to him, will form an essential part of the process 
which has for its end the restoration of men to communion 
with God. 

The Pelagian view of things appears, at the first glance, 
to be the easiest. It avoids a number of very difficult ques- 
tions which theology has not yet succeeded, and perhaps 
never will succeed, in solving. The trouble is, that it omits 
to recognize or take into the account vast facts which ob- 
trude themselves upon observation at every turn. How 
well has it been said that sin is the one mystery that makes 
every thing else plain ! Superficial views on the subject of 
sin, where tlie views are not absolutely false and anti-Chris- 
tian, lie at the foundation of most of the current infidel 
theories. A truly profound and just view of this sub- 
ject is the one grand corrective. Every system of panthe- 
ism assumes, and must assume, what the healthy moral 
sense of every man denounces as a falsehood — that the en- 
tire course of this world is normal, and conformed to the 
ideal ; that baseness and perfidy, and every form of selfish- 
ness, are well, and even divine, in their place. It is no 
wonder that Spinoza and Hegel betray some uneasiness at 
what are the necessary ethical implications of their systems. 
Every system of deism likewise assumes that man is able, 
without aid from above, to acquaint himself, as fully as he 
needs, with God, and to deliver himself from the yoke of 
evil. The Author of revelation says the whole truth in a 
word: "Thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thy 
help." 

Let full justice be done to the position of the Rationalist : 
his doctrine, in the most refined form, is that of the suprem- 
acy of reason and the moral sense. There is force and 
plausibility in the statement ; but let one consideration be 
noted. Suppose that I am driven to the admission that rea- 
son and the moral sense within me are not quenched, but 



460 ' EATIOXALISM. 

perverted and obscured ; and suppose that, in Christ, I rec- 
ognize one in whom, being sinless, reason and the moral 
sense are clear and perfect, so that his eye sees moral truth 
with an infallible discernment; suppose that mj conviction 
of his superiority in this respect is deepened with every 
day's contemplation of his character and teaching, and that, 
the more I assume the temper of a disciple, the more is my 
moral sense quickened and clarified through contact with 
his spirit : why shall I not recognize him as the authority in 
this province of morals and religion ? In this act of trust, 
do I not establish, rather than subvert, the supremacy of 
reason and conscience ? Be it remembered, also, that this 
relation to Christ is not one that supplants the exercise of 
my intelligence and moral sense ; but it is one that rectifies, 
and at the same time constantly develops, elevates, and edu- 
cates, these powers of the soul. TTe call him Lord and blas- 
ter ; and so he is : but he does not call us servants, but rath- 
er fi-iends ; for all things that are made known to him he 
reveals to us. The relation of dependence is ever turning 
into that of felloAvship and fi'iendship, of sympathy and per- 
sonal insight. 

Let a man discern the surpassing excellence of Christ, and 
the germ of faith is within him. itemember that there is 
an order among things to be believed. You are conscious of 
sin and moral weakness ; you have lost that filial relation to 
God which is the bh-thright of human natm-e ; but you are 
struck with the perfect excellence of Christ as he is de- 
scribed in the Gospels. Here is a character that more than 
fills out your highest conception of nobleness and vii-tue ; 
here is one whose filial communion with God sin has never 
broken. This character of Christ is the witness to its own 
reality. It is no product of imagination : the records that 
exhibit it could never have been framed by invention. But 
how about the supernatural facts of the history ? They, too, 
are upheld by the power of this human, and yet superhuman, 
excellence. You feel that the works of Christ are no more 



RATIONALISM. 461 

wonderful tlian his words and his life, and that he himself 
is the greatest wonder of all. Who but he can be the Kec- 
onciler ? Whose hand can I take but his ? But he proposes 
to bring ns out of our separation from God, and rescue us 
from the ruin which sin has brought upon human nature. 
He is at once the instrument and the first example of re- 
demption ; for in his own person, having overcome sin, he 
overcomes death. He is the power of life to all who come 
to him, infusing into them his own holiness and peace, re- 
connecting them with God, saving them from death. It is 
a legitimate progress, then, from the first living perception 
of the excellence of Christ to a personal trust in him as the 
Savdour, and to a discernment, also, of the inner rationality 
of the method of redemption. Difficulties respecting this 
or that portion of the Bible may be left to take care of them- 
selves, provided they are not obstacles in the way of a prac- 
tical acquaintance with Christ. Even the Bible is not to be 
interposed between the soul and Christ. He was preached 
and believed in before the 'New Testament was written, and 
to those who knew little or nothing of the Old. Salvation 
is by faith in him. Believing in him, we stand on safe 
ground, from which all questions, even such as relate to the 
Scriptures themselves, may be studied. E'o loyal disciple 
need fear the displeasure of his Master on account of intel- 
lectual difficulties which he is doing his best to solve. 

It should not be overlooked that Christianity is more than 
theory or precept : it is fact ; it is a great act of love and 
sacrifice — an act of God himself. For tliis reason, it can 
never be thought out by an d priori process, or brought 
under the category of necessary truth. As sin can never be 
explained, in the sense of being reduced under the category 
of cause and effect, like a physical event, for the reason that 
sin is a free act, so it is with redemption. In its very na- 
ture it is historical : hence philosophy can never bring it 
into a chain of necessary conceptions. Christianity is some- 
thing which reason does not evolve out of itself, but which 



462 EATIOXALISM. 

must be received like any other great historical transaction 
in which free-will plays the essential part. 

In dealing with rationalism, let it be observed that it is 
vain, as well as wrong, to attempt to check the freedom of 
investigation in any province of knowledge. In regard to 
the beautiful sciences of nature, the rapid progress of which 
is a leading characteristic of the present age, this remark is 
especially pertinent. Let the investigation of second causes 
in nature be carried as far as possible, and let there be no 
hindrance put in its way. A jealousy on the part of stu- 
dents and ministers of the gospel with reference to these 
branches of study is equally unmanly and futile. At the 
same time, it deserves to be remarked, that, just now, the 
tendency to speculation is more rife among physical philos- 
ophers than among metaphysicians : and theories of nature 
are brought forward which have a very slender basis of 
facts to rest upon, and which evince a wide departure from 
the Baconian method. Those philosophers must not be ten- 
derly sensitive if their theories are subjected to a rigid criti- 
cism by theologians, who, to say the least, are, equally with 
them, trained to habits of logical analysis. We must be ex- 
cused for not showing the deference to guesses that is prop- 
erly paid to established truth. Again : it is imjust to charge 
the clergy and theologians with a standing opposition to new 
discoveries in physical science. It would be strange if the 
Christian Church, which has educated the Em-opean nations, 
reduced their languages to wiiting, founded their schools and 
universities, saved the ark of learning in the midst of a del- 
uge of barbarism, were to be found uniformly an obstacle in 
the path of scientific progress. The fact is, that almost all 
new discoveries which subvert traditional opinions are looked 
upon at the outset with distrust, and meet with opposition. 
This opposition is far from being peculiar to theologians, 
even in the case of physical discovery. Resistance often 
comes from the men of science themselves. Galileo, the old 



RATIONALISM. 463 

example of ecclesiastical intolerance, had his contest to wage 
with them. There was the scientific professor at Padua, who 
conld not be induced to look through the glass, and see the 
moons of Jupiter. Why is not more eloquence expended 
against the narrowness and bigotry of scientific men them- 
selves in respect to new truth in their own department ? 
And, if so much progress is claimed for the physical branch- 
es, why may not some progress be permitted from age to 
ao^e in the imderstandino; of the Bible and of the nature and 
boundaries of inspiration ? Once more it must be said, that 
the natural and physical sciences, beautiful and useful as 
they are, often claim, just at present, a higher relative place 
on the scale of studies than justly belongs to them. The 
study of matter, even the study of living beings below man, 
and of his material organism, must ever stand in respect to 
dignity, as an instrument of culture, second to the studies 
that relate to the mind. " The proper study of mankind is 
man." Man, and the products of his activity — language, 
history, literature, art — are the grandest, the most fructifying 
studies. The opposite view must be withstood, because it 
can only prevail in alliance with materialistic tendencies and 
influences. The study of material nature is lauded as being 
an observation of the thoughts of God, and an examination 
of his works, instead of the works of man. But the human 
mind is the great work of God, being his image. More is to 
be learned from the mind of Shakespeare, concerning God its 
Creator, than can be gathered from the astronomic system — 
infinitely more. We would not disparage physical studies ; 
let them be encouraged, fostered, cultivated, to the utmost : 
but there are loftier, more inspiring, more edifying branches 
of study than these. The natural and physical sciences do 
their best work in the way of mental culture when they are 
pursued by men who bring to the study of nature an ideal 
element that flows into the mind from other fountains. 
Alexander Yon Humboldt, though not belonging to the first 
order of genius, and not to be compared with men like Xep- 



464: RATIONALISM, 

ler, l^ewton, and Leibnitz, is, nevertheless, an example of the 
warming and widening influence of literary studies upon a 
devotee of science. He caught something from the genius 
of his brother, who was probably the abler man of the two. 

But rationalism must be met in the field of argument. 
To this end, apart from the intrinsic interest and value of 
these studies, the physical sciences must be so far pursued 
by the student of the gospel as to qualify him to judge of 
the theories and deductions that bear closely on natural and 
revealed religion. The two classes of scholars need to know 
more of one another, and of the wide fields of research in 
which, respectively, each of them is most at home. Then 
the naturalist will not ignore the vast range of facts and data 
that do not lie within his own circle, and a like benefit will 
accrue to the theologian. 

The theologian must not set his face against new truth in 
his own branch. Revelation is complete, but not our un- 
derstanding of it. Let us not mistake the outpost for the 
citadel. Let us not imagine that the Christian faith is im- 
perilled by every proposed modification of received opinions. 
The effect of historical, philological, and scientific study, is 
to bring out in bolder relief the human element in the Holy 
Scriptures. It is more and more felt that " we have this 
treasure in earthen vessels." 11 the result is, that tradi- 
tional formulas are somewhat altered, and new statements 
must be framed in their place, let it not be supposed that all 
or that anything truly valuable, is lost. Be it ever remem- 
bered that '^ the letter killeth ; the spirit givetli life." 
Much may be conceded, respecting the Bible, that was once 
denied ; and yet it is left infallible and sufficient as a rule 
of faith. There is a power in the Bible to quicken the soul ; 
to meet our deepest necessities ; to satisfy us when all other 
sources of wisdom and comfort fail ; "to find us," as Cole- 
ridge has aptly expressed it : and this power, made manifest 
in all ages, and among all conditions of men, is the evidence 
of his divine origin, and a pledge, that, whatever peculiari- 



RATIONALISM. 465 

ties incidental to its human origin likewise may come to 
light, it will never lose its hold npon mankind. A good 
way to make infidels of sharp-sighted and thoughtful men is 
to identify the truth of the Gospel with untenable formulas 
respecting the Scriptures ; to make, for example, Chris- 
tianity stand or fall with the exactness of a genealogical 
table. Richard Baxter felt this, even in his day. E^ever 
was there a louder call for the utmost candor and fairness in 
dealing with the difficulties and objections of inquiring 
minds, whose perplexities find little relief in much of the 
current and traditional teaching. Where there is no settled 
hostility to the Christian faith, an ironical, conciliatory spirit 
on the side of its defenders is eminently called for. " Prove 
all things, hold fast to that which is good," is the motto for 
the times. It was a Church father — Tertullian, I believe — 
who said that it was tradition that nailed Christ to the cross. 

^Nevertheless, the tenor of the foregoing remarks will pre- 
vent surprise at the observation, that the most effective an- 
tidote to the influence of rationalism is found in direct ap- 
peals to the moral and spiritual nature. There is a testi- 
mony within, if it can only be called forth. Sometimes the 
inward witness is awakened by the experiences of life. 
Robert Hall said that he buried his materialism in the grave 
of his father. But another providential agent for effecting 
this result is the prophet's voice. Men are raised up iu' 
sceptical times when the higher spiritual nature of men 
seems dormant, and when the understanding has taken the 
throne of reason — men whose office it is to appeal with a 
direct and vivifying power to the intuitive function of the 
spirit. Among the heathen, this work was done by Socrates, 
in opposition to the Sophists. He taught men to find with- 
in themselves, in their own moral intuitions, a certainty 
which nothing could shake. In modern times, in Germany, 
when a barren rationalism had paralyzed faith, it was 
Schleiermacher w^ho recalled men to religion. The high 



466 EATIONALISM. 

privilege was given liim to awaken his contemporaries to a 
sense of the indestructible character and sacred authority of 
relioion. His errors, whatever thej may have been, should 
never prevent ns fi'om recognizing the greatness of the ser- 
vice which he rendered. There is no truly earnest preacher, 
who speaks from a living experience, who is not carrying 
forward an effective war against rationalism. Eobertson of 
Brighton, referring to the cry of John the Baptist to the 
Phrrisees and Sadducees, " AYho hath warned you to £ee 
fi'om the wi-ath to come ? " raises the question, how such 
words conld be addressed with any hope to Sadducees, who 
did not believe in a wrath to come, or in any life hereafter. 
But, says the preacher, when they heard the prophet say, 
" AYho hath warned you to flee fi'om the wrath to come ? " 
they knew that there ^vas a wrath to come. There are re- 
sponsive chords in the soul, which the truth, when simply 
asserted with the earnestness of a living conviction, sets in 
vibration. Arguments are sometimes necessary and useful ; 
but they may be superfluous, and even harmful. A striking 
statement that brings truth in direct contact with the spirit, 
a declaration that comes from insight and experience, may 
do what reasoning fails to accomplish. A single utterance, 
which I call, for the want of an equally expressive term, pro- 
phetical, will sometimes dissipate doubt in a moment, and 
develop a conviction which intellectual inquiry alone might 
'never awaken. 

In Germany, it was an orthodox rationalism that paved 
the way for the heterodox. Theologians took their proposi- 
tions from the creed, or reasoned them out by processes of 
logic, but forgot to set them in a living relation to the wants 
and aspirations of the soul ; or they dwelt on the ethical 
side of the Gospel, to the neglect of the properly religious 
elements, in which the originality and power of Christianity 
chiefly reside. Let not the lesson be lost upon us, who are 
going through an experience not unlike that through which 
Germany has, in a sense, abeady passed. 



RATIONALISM. 467 

There is one final test to which irreligious as well as reli- 
gious systems are subject; and that is, their influence on 
society. The Christian religion is the life-blood of the social 
body. That gone, decay and moral death inevitably follow. 
Jesus called his followers " the salt of the earth," " the light 
of the world." They were the light of the world because 
he is the light of the world, and their light is kindled from 
him. Let materialism prevail, and, as surely as effects fol- 
low causes, the appetites of sense and earthly passions will 
gain an undisputed ascendancy, and overturn at last the 
social fabric. Let a less gross form of rationalism supplant 
faith in the verities of the Gospel, and a like appalling result 
will ultimately, though it may be with slower pace, ensue. 
History unites with reason in teaching, that, when the re- 
straints and incentives that flow from religion are lost, there 
is no power adequate to control the selflsh propensities 
which clamor for indulgence. If men are made to believe 
that they are merely animals, they will, in the end, behave 
like the brutes. If they are persuaded that they are desti- 
tute of a free and responsible nature, they will act without 
a conscience. If they reject the truth of a righteous moral 
government, they will sin without fear. If the religion of 
Christ is treated as a human invention, the regenerating 
power that lies in the Gospel is wanting. By tliis last stern 
test, every irreligious and anti-Christian system which is not 
otherwise overcome must be tried. Supernatural Christi- 
anity has been tried as a reformatory agent in millions of 
individuals, and in society at large. We know what the 
Gospel can do when it is cordially received. We are not 
ignorant of what may be expected if atheism, or pantheism, 
or a Christless deism, should prevail. The fate of the civi- 
lized heathen nations of antiquity is instructive : so is the 
history of modern nations which have given themselves up 
to infldelity. Apart from argument, there remains, then, 
the great test of experience, " By their fruits ye shall know 
them." 



468 THE UNREASONABLENESS OF ATHEISM. 



THE UNREASONABLENESS OF ATHEISM.* 

The word " fool " commonly means, in the Bible, not a 
person actually devoid of reason, but one who, having rea- 
son, fails, through some wrong quality of character, to use 
it aright, but proceeds in his thinking or conduct in a way 
contrary to the dictates of a sound intelligence. There are 
two sorts of fools ; first, natural fools, and secondly, fools 
from choice — or those who, from haste or conceit, or some 
evil inclination, occult it may be, are grossly misled in their 
opinions, or in their practical action. When, for example, 
we read in the Proverbs that " Judgments are prepared for 
sinners, and stripes for the back of fools ; " and, in another 
place, " Though thou shouldst bray a fool in a mortar among 
wheat with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from 
him," the allusion is plainly not to men whose native talents 
are below the average, and whose attainments of knowledge 
are small. Everything like contempt for inferiors of this 
class is utterly at variance with the spirit of Christianity. 
The pride of knowledge, like every other kind of pride, is 
rebuked in the Bible. But the allusion is to one who, while 
possessed of the attributes of a rational being, chooses, 
nevertheless, to adopt principles, or pursue lines of conduct, 
that are perfectly unreasonable. Even then, to call another 
" fool " in any bitter temper, to despise or hate him for any 
cause, is forbidden in the Sermon on the Mount. Yet there 
is nothing to hinder us from designating folly, not passion- 
ately, but in a calm and sober way, by its true name. Not 



* A Discourse in the chapel of Yale College (October 22, 1876), on the 
text : " The fool hath said in his heart, ' There is no God.'" Ps. xiv. 1. 



THE UNREASONABLENESS OF ATHEISM. 469 

to tarry longer Tipon the explanation of words, I wish to 
speak of the folly of atheism under two heads; first, the 
futility of the reasons that lead to it, and secondly, the 
strength of the evidence for the being of God which it ig- 
nores. 

Among the sources of atheism, one is the fact that God 
is imperceptible by the senses. The remark has been at- 
tributed to La Place that, searching the heavens, he could 
not find God with his telescope. It is doubtful whether he 
ever said it. But whether he did or not, it indicates the 
spirit that often tacitly underlies theoretical and practical 
atheism. God, when sought for as a visible object, cannot 
be found by traversing the sea, or exploring the sky, even' 
if one pursued his journey to the farthest star. But what 
folly to conclude that God does not exist, because he is not 
visible ! Men — unless you call the body the man — are not 
visible. The thinking principle, neither in yourself nor in 
others, have you ever seen. You may say that you are con- 
scious of it in yourself. But how do you know that it ex- 
ists in another — in the friend, for example, who sits at your 
side? You cannot see it: all that you behold is certain 
manifestations, or phenomena — certain visible and tangible 
signs — which reveal its presence. You may be in daily, in- 
timate converse with another, but his soul ever remains in- 
visible: for 

' ' We are spirits clad in veils : 
Man by man was never seen : 
All our deep communing fails 

To remove the shadowy screen." * 

Why then disbelieve in God because you cannot see him ? 
If through the look, the tone, the gesture of a man at your 
side you can infer, or behold with the eye of faith, the in- 
visible mind that resides within, the seat of thought and af- 
fection, why not recognize the Supreme Intelligence, of 

* From a poem of C. P. Cranch. 



470 THE UNREASONABLENESS OF ATHEISM. 

whom it is true, as an apostle has said, that '' The invisible 
things of him from the creation of the world are clearly 
seen, being understood by the things that are made, even 
his eternal power and Godhead ? " Even within the sphere 
of material nature, invisible forces, some of them of vast 
energy, are admitted to exist. They tell us that matter is 
composed of atoms : who has seen them ? Who has seen 
the force of gravitation, and can paint a likeness of it ? 
Who has beheld the subtle ether which, it is believed, per- 
vades all space ? He who believes in nothing but what he, 
or somebody else has seen, will have a short creed. Even 
if he admit the reality of matter and molecular motion, he 
will have to deny the existence of any such thing as a power 
of thought or volition — a principle of intelligence — behind 
the actions and expressions^f his fellow-men. He must 
deny that he is endued with such a power himself. There 
is no need to go farther. ^Yhen he has emptied the world 
of everything but brute matter, which can be weighed and 
clutched, or brought under the laws of molecular action, he 
may, perhaps, logically reject God. 

A second source of atheism, is the notion that as far as 
second causes are brought to light, the first cause is excluded, 
or the notion that second causes are disconnected fi'om God. 
In the Bible, we read, in a sentence that has hardly a paral- 
lel for beauty : " By the Word of the Lord were the 
heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of 
his mouth." ^ow suppose the nebular hypothesis, as 
broached by Herschel and La Place, to be true. Whether 
it be true or not, I cannot say : the astronomers have not * 
yet made up their minds about it. But suppose it to be 
true. Then a homogeneous, nebulous matter diffused abroad 
in space, by a long process of attractions and repulsions, 
combinations and motions, solidified into the bodies and sys- 
tems which now form the sidereal world. Does this rule 
out the sublime declaration of Scripture — " By the Word of 
the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them 



THE UNEEASONABLENESS OF ATHEISM. 471 

by the breath of his month ? " Before attending to this 
qnestion, let ns turn for a moment to another illustration. 
A person, after a lingering illness, dies. The minister and 
the physician happen to be together. The minister says : 
" It has pleased God to terminate the life of our brother." 
" ]N'o," says the doctor, " he died of a fever." " You are 
wrong," replies the minister, " it is God — it is he that killeth 
and that maketh alive." " You are wrong," rejoins the 
other, " I have watched the progress of the fever from the 
beginning : such a fever seizing upon such a constitution can 
have no other issue." The one party falls back on religious 
conviction, and the testimony of the Bible ; the other ap- 
peals to the obvious connection of antecedent and conse- 
quent. ;Now shall this unseemly wrangle between the min- 
ister and the doctor be dignified by the high-sounding name 
of " a conflict between religion and science ? " In such a 
contest, both are right in what they affirm, and wrong in 
what they deny. Let all the links of secondary causation 
be exposed as completely as possible, each of them bound to 
the one before and after it, it is not less true that, when life 
ends, it is God who brings it to an end. The instrument 
used does not exclude, it includes his agency. If a bird is 
shot by a rifle, it is a man still that kills the bird. Many 
appear to think that God is to be found, if found at all, only 
at the origin of things — the origin of matter, the origin of life, 
the origin of different species — at crises, so to speak. But " he 
maketh his sun to rise " — daily maketh his sun to rise — " on 
the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and 
on the unjust." Tie is present with his agency in the course 
of nature not less really and efficiently than at the begin- 
nings of nature. He is the primal fountain from which all 
force emanates. " Not a sparrow falls to the ground without 
your Father." We revert now to the question of the origin 
of the stellar universe. God is not less its author even if 
the material of which it is composed were carried through a 
succession of changes, reaching through a long series of ages. 



472 THE TJNEEASONABLENESS OF ATHEISM. 

There is, to be sure, the origination of the material to be 
accounted for, with all its latent properties and tendencies. 
But God is presupposed not only at this initial stage, but at 
every subsequent movement, until the glorious work was 
consummated. " By the Word of the Lord " — by his will 
and in pursuance of his plan — " were the heavens made." 

Science has for its business the investigation of second 
causes. Let it have a fair field. I sympathize with the re- 
sentment which the students of nature feel when the at- 
tempt is made to furnish them with conclusions beforehand. 
Their peculiar province is to unfold all the links of second- 
ary causation — every nexus between antecedent and conse- 
quent — which they can ferret out. But the origin of things 
— I mean, the primary origin — and the end, or design, it 
belongs to philosophy, in the light of revelation, to define. 
The man of science may, also, be a philosopher ; and he may 
not be.^' The particular fallacy, however, which I would 
here point out is the false and unauthorized assumption that 
where secondary causation begins, divine agency ceases, and 
that as far as secondary causation extends, divine agency is 
excluded. How much nobler is the conception of the Bible, 
,in the IN^ew Testament as well as in the Old ! It is God by 
whom the lilies of the field are clothed with beauty. The 
fowls of the air — it is your Heavenly Father that feedeth 
them ! 

Closely allied to the fallacy just named is the assumption 
that mechanical causes are incompatible with design. Much 

* It is a remark of Archbishop Whately, to be found somewhere in his 
biography, and a remark characteristic of- his sagacity, that science has 
nothing- to do with religion. If I ask a man of science for the origin of an 
eclipse, it is not for him, that is, not for him in his character as a man of 
science, to answer that God caused it. This I knew before. His func- 
tion is to explain the antecedents which constitute the ground on which 
the event can be predicted. What is true of an eclipse is true of every- 
thing else in nature. With respect to the origin of man, it is perfectly 
legitimate, it is, in fact, the proper function of the scientific man, to find 
out the mediating process — if there was one — in his creation. 



THE UNREASONABLENESS OF ATHEISM. 473 

of the atheistic reasoning current at the present day proceeds 
on this wholly gratuitous assumption, which the analogies of 
human experience contradict. But to this fallacy I shall 
soon advert again. 

A third particular in which atheism demonstrates its folly 
is in the assumption that the laws of nature — or the unifor- 
mity of nature's laws — excludes God. Must there be then a 
break — discord where there is order — to prove that God 
reigns ? Is there no God, because there is a reign of law ? 
Imagine that in the room of the universal sway of law, there 
were a jumble of events, no fixed relation of antecedent and 
consequent ; in a word, chaos. Would there be more or less 
evidence of a God than there is now ? It is because nature is 
an orderly system, that the universe is intelligible, and science 
possible. This very aspect of nature shows that the head of 
the universe is an intelligent being. Miracles would not be 
credible, if they were, as some suppose them to be, anti-natural. 
Though not the mere effect of nature, they harmonize with 
it, as parts of a more comprehensive system. ^^ What a 
strange idea that for the heavens to declare the glory of 
God, it is necessary that the planets should leap out of their 
orbits, instead of keeping their appointed path with unfal- 
tering regularity ! We count it the perfection of intelligent 
control, when the railway train reaches its destination, day 
after day, at the same appointed moment. " O, no ! " cries 
the Atheist : " let the train, now and then, run off the track 
into yonder meadow, and I will believe that it does not go 
of itself, and that an engineer guides it." A government of 
law is opposed to that of wild chance or mutable caprice. 



* Miracles surpass the capacities of nature. But, as Augustine long 
ago affirmed, the ordinary operations of nature are just as truly from 
Grod, as are miraculous phenomena; and those operations would be just 
as inarvellous, were we not familiar with them, as any miracle can be. 
What marvel greater than every new-born child ? But the point made 
above is that miracles have their law — their rationale — as parts of the 
divine plan. 



4:74 THE UNEEASONABLENESS OF ATHEISM. 

"What should we expect of perfect wisdom, and of perfect 
goodness too, but a system of nature, a fixed order, on which 
men can build their plans ? Of all the grounds for atheism, 
the rationality of the universe is the most singular. 

Another pretext for atheism is the alleged contrariety of 
the teaching of the Bible to the discoveries of natm^al and 
physical science. An odd conclusion surely, even if such a 
contradiction were found. For the Bible does not first make 
known the existence of God. If the Bible were shown to be 
full of errors, it would not disprove the being of God. His 
being is assumed in the Bible. It is declared to be manifest 
in the universe around us, and within us, so that heathenism 
is without excuse. But there is no discrepancy between the 
ascertained truth of science, and the essential teaching of 
the Bible respecting God and his relations to the world. 
The Bible is our guide in morals and religion. It does not 
anticipate the discoveries of science, or of art. Paul was a 
tent-maker. The inspiration that so illmninated his spiritual 
perception as to render him an authoritative teacher of the 
Gospel, did not, as far as we know, enable him to make tents 
any better than other workmen of the same craft. There 
has been, doubtless, since his time, a progress in this art as 
in almost every other. These two things are true of the 
Bible : first, it is written from the religious point of view. 
That is, God is brought directly before us, in describing the 
works of Providence, as well as the phenomena of nature — 
secondary and intermediate causes being, to a large extent, 
dropped out of sight. The veil that hides him, so to speak, 
from the dull eyes of men, is torn away, and his agency is 
brought into the foreground. Secondly, the Bible writers 
take the science of their time, or the ordinary conceptions 
of men respecting the material world, and proceed upon that 
basis, eliminating, however, everything at variance with true 
religion. They stand substantially on the same plane of phys- 
ical knowledge as their contemporaries ; and from that plane 
they exhibit the attributes of God as the creator and ruler 



THE UNREASONABLENESS OF ATHEISM. 475 

of nature. The astronomy of the Bible is that of the an- 
cients. Its authors had no idea of the Copernican system. 
They simply discard all heathen mythological conceptions, 
leaving no room for Baal-worship. Their concern was to 
reveal God as the almighty maker and sustainer of the visi- 
ble universe ; they did not, and they could not, explain the 
sidereal system. * As for geology, there was none. The 
Pentateuch records the giving of the law upon Sinai, but 
does not tell us that the rock is of granite. The journey of 
the Israelites in the wilderness was not a geological excur- 
sion. We know not when, or by whom, the story of the 
creation was first recorded in the form in which we have it. 
But that sublime passage of Holy Writ has its parallels in 
the ancient traditions of other Semitic peoples. In Genesis, 
we find it cleansed of polytheistic error, and made the vehi- 
cle of conveying the loftiest moral and religious truth. Com- 
pare it with the cosmogony of Assyria or Babylon, and you 
will see wherein the proof of its inspiration lies. There may 
be striking correspondences wdth modern knowledge, as in 
the creation of light before the heavenly bodies, f But I 
should not expect to find in this old panorama of the crea- 
tion, as it passed before the purified imagination of the 
primitive Hebrews, any rigid conformity in detail with that 
vast book which modern science has unrolled. It passed for 
literal history in by-gone ages ; but it must be read now as 
a poem — a history in the forms of the imagination, as it 
really was in its primitive inception ; yet a poem stamped 
with the evidences of divine inspiration, containing the es- 
sential principles of the Old Testament religion, and em- 



* It was a wise as well as witty remark of a celebrated ecclesiastic, sup- 
posed to be the C'ardinal Baronius, to whom Galileo refers, that the Bible 
was given to teach us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go. 

f Yet it seems to have been a prevalent conception that light was inde- 
pendent of the heavenly luminaries. It has a dwelling-place (Job xxxviii. 
19). Even in the Greek conception, " the rosy-fingered dawn" preceded 
the chariot of Apollo. 



476 THE UNREASOXABLENESS OF ATHEISM. 

bodying more moral and religions trntli than all other books 
not wi-itten in dependence on the Bible. The first utterance 
— " In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth " 
— is a trnth to which heathen philosophy, on its highest 
stage, never absolutely attained. * The Bible fares hardly 
in these days, between an infidel theology, on the one hand, 
which is blind to the snpernatiu-al wisdom that belongs to it, 
and a rabbinical theology on the other, that makes, no room 
in its formulas for the human element which pervades the 
book from beginning to end. The Bible is crucified, as it 
were, between these two theologies. But the Bible, con- 

* In the first three chapters of Genesis, we find asserted the truths that 
the universe owes its being to the creative agency of one personal God — 
as against dualism, pantheism, and polytheism ; that man is like God in 
his spiritual faculties ; that sin is not a physical or metaphysical necessity, 
but has its origin and seat in the will of the creature ; that guilt brings 
shame and separation from communion with God ; that immorality is the 
natural fruit of impiety. These are truths of vast moment ; peculiar, in 
their pure form, to the religion of the Bible. 

Ordinarily we find it to be the method of Providence that sacred history, 
like other history, should be recorded by " eye-witnesses or well-informed 
contemporaries. " Witness the almost complete silence of the Evangelists 
upon the first thirty years of the Saviour's life. " Wherefore," said Peter 
(Acts i. 21, 22), "of these men which have companied with us all the 
time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the 
baptism of John, unto that same day that he was taken up from us. must 
one be ordained to be a witness with us of his resurrection." The early 
part of Genesis, the Prolegomena to the Mosaic legislation and to the re- 
cord of the founding of the Hebrew Commonwealth, precedes contempo- 
rary authorship, except so far as earlier documents may be interwoven. 
It is to be expected that diflBcuIties, and questions for criticism, would 
arise in extraordinary measure respecting this section of the Bible, Es- 
pecially is this true of the first ten chapters, which carry us far back into 
the primeval era, anterior to the beginnings of the Jewish people. But 
whatever may be here set down to "the human element." the homo- 
geneity of these narratives, as to their moral and religious spirit and con- 
tent, with the rest of the Scriptures, and thus their elevation above all 
heathen literature, must not be overlooked. The divine element is not 
less conspicuous and impressive on the mind of a thoughtful student of 
the history of religion, than in those portions of the Bible which emanate 
directly from persons who participated in the events which they record. 



THE UNREASONABLENESS OF ATHEISM. 477 

taining as it does the word of God, has a perennial life in 
it. It has shown its power to outlive the changing systems 
of its human interpreters. There is no inconsistency, then, 
between the Bible, taken as the teacher of moral and relig- 
ious truth, and the results of scientific study. There is no 
room for contradiction, since they move on different planes. 
Hence atheism founded on this pretext is a folly. 

Another ground of atheism is the supposed imperfection 
in the Creator's work, or government. This, if shown to 
exist, would not disprove the being of God, though it might 
affect our estimate of his attributes. If a house is leaky, we 
do not infer that it was never built, but only that the work- 
men lacked skill, or were guilty of negligence. It was 
thought, a century ago, to be a ridiculous boast when 
Thomas Paine said of the Bible that he could write a bet- 
ter book himself. But we have had to listen, in our time, 
to criticisms equally daring upon the system of nature, 
which has been pronounced in various particulars defective. 
Complaint is, also, made that, in the course of things, right- 
eousness and prosperity are not always united ; and, hence, 
that a perfect moral Ruler, one possessed of infinite good- 
ness and infinite power, cannot be supposed. This last is 
an old objection. We might stop to ask whence the sceptic 
derives the faculties by which he undertakes to criticise the 
natural and moral system, and where he obtained the stand- 
ard on which his judgments are based ? If the universe is 
so at fault, what assurance has he that his own judging 
faculty, the author of this unfavorable verdict, is any better 
constructed ? But, passing by this consideration, the whole 
objection, as Bishop Butler has shown with irresistible force, 
is an argument from ignorance. It is a rash judgment upon 
a system not yet completed. I will suppose a man to enter 
the Cologne Cathedral, one of the grandest monuments of 
the genius and piety of the middle ages. He paces up and 
down its long aisles ; he follows with his eye the columns, 
ascending upward, and spreading their branches like a 



478 THE rXEEASOXABLEXESS OF ATHEISM. 

mighty forest, to upliold the far-off canopy of stone : he 
pauses at 

'• The storied windows, richly dight, 
Casting a dim, religions light ; '' 

but. jnst as the gTancleiir and symmetry of the vast edifice 
touch his soul ^vith a sensation of awe, his eye falls on por- 
tions of the wall left in the rough, on towers abruptly broken 
off, and cries out, *' the artist was, after all. a bung-ler 



I ;? 



What would Tou say to such a man \ You Avould say, '• O 
profane babbler, the building is not yet done ! *' Is there 
not enough to prove the skill of the architect ? You can 
see to what result the consti'uction tends. TTait till the plan 
is complete, before you utter your disparagement. So it is 
with the moral system, and the moral administration of the 
world. Xow we know in part. We see that the direction 
is right ; we can secm-ely wait for the consimimation. 

Tm-n now, for a moment, to the positive evidence of God 
which atheism fails to acknowledge in its real import. 

Tliere is, first, the revelation of God in the soul. There 
is within us a sense of dependence, and a consciousness of a 
law imposed upon us by the Power on whom we depend — a 
law moral in its natm-e, and thus revealing that power as 
having a preference for right — ui other words, as personal 
and holy. An almost audible voice of God in the soul dis- 
closes to us his being, and intimate relation to ourselves.* 
Connected with this inward experience of dependence and 
of duty, there is in the depth of the spirit a yeaiTong for 

* Snppose the unverified notion of the gradual genesis of the moral 
faculty — that it is the result of the accretion of hereditary impressions — to 
be held ; still the moral faculty now exists. Moreover, it stands as well, 
as to its origin, as the intellectual nature ; and legitimate deductions 
from the phenomena of our moral consciousness are equally valid with 
the science which depends for all of its conclusions on the validity of oui 
intellectual faculty. It is diflficult for the most erratic speculation to 
strike at religion without, at the same time, not only striking at morality, 
but anniliilacmg itself ; for the science that casts discredit on the organ 
of knowledge commits suicide in the very act. 



THE UNREASONABLENESS OF ATHEISM. 479 

communion with liim in whom we live, and move, and have 
our being. These inward testimonies of God can never be 
absohitely silenced. A recent writer has defined God as the 
power, not onrselves, that makes for righteousness. There 
is a power, then, that gives law to the will without coercing 
it, cheers with the hope of reward, and menaces with the 
dread of punishment, and actually secures the reward to the 
righteous ; and yet that power has no love of righteousness, 
and no hatred to iniquity ! It is unnatural, it is a perver- 
sion of reason to believe this. Behind the mandate of con- 
science is the preference and will of God. Coleridge is 
right in saying that it is our duty to believe in God ; for 
this belief is indispensable to the life of conscience. The 
only correlate for the unquenchable yearning of the human 
spirit for a higher communion, is the living God, who, 
though not seen by us, himself " seeth in secret." Faith in 
God springs up in the soul spontaneously, where the soul is 
not darkened and perverted. It is strictly natural. Hence 
religion, in some form, is universal, or as nearly so as are 
the exercise of a moral sense, and the rest of the higher 
powers of man. Religion, the belief in God, is like the 
domestic affections. They may be weakened, they may be 
corrupted, they may be deadened, and, to all appearance 
well-nigh extirpated. Nevertheless, they remain, an inde- 
structible part of human nature. A man may argue that 
these affections — filial, parental, conjugal love — are irrational, 
the product of fancy, or merely an heir-loom from the past. 
Pseudo-philosophers have done this. He may profess to 
emancipate himself from these superstitious feelings. But if 
he succeed, he will only starve his heart ; and, in the end, 
; nature will prove too strong for him.* Eeligion is not a 

* If the attempt were made to bring up a child without the exercise on 
his part of domestic affection, all the propensities and feelings that relate 
to the family being, as far as practicable, stifled, the experiment would be 
analogous to that which John Stuart Mill suffered, as regards religion, at 
the hands of his father. 



480 THE UNREASONABLENESS OF ATHEISM. 

doctrine merely ; it is a life, an integral part of tlie life of 
the soul ; and without religion, man is a poor deformed 
creature, more dead than alive. Every organ, deprived of 
its correlated object, feels after it. There is an effort, a 
nisus — from which there is no rest. So it is in a man who 
undertakes to live without God — at least until higher sensi- 
bility is paralyzed. In these ways does God give a witness 
of himself within us, to disregard which is not less irrational 
than wicked. 

Secondly, atheism disregards the revelation of God in the 
structure of the world, the marks of design that everywhere 
present themselves to the unbiassed observer. " He that 
planted the ear, shall he not hear? He that formed the 
eye, shall he not see ? " The mind refuses to believe that 
the author — the cause — of the eye and ear, is itself void 
of perception. The adaptations of nature exhibit on every 
hand a contriving mind. The thought of God springs up 
within us involuntarily, whenever we consider the human 
frame, or look at any other of the countless examples of de- 
sign of which the world is full. There is proof of arrange- 
ment everywhere. The heart rises in thanks and worship 
to " Him who alone doeth great wonders ; " " to him that 
by wisdom made the heavens ; " " that stretched out the 
earth above the waters ; " " to him that made great lights, 
the sun to rule by day, the moon and stars to rule by night." 
This evidence of God has impressed the greatest minds of 
the race — men like Socrates and Cicero — and the humblest 
minds alike. One would think that a man, knowing by con- 
sciousness and observation what the characteristic marks and 
fruits of intelligence are, must have put out his eyes if he 
fails to discern a plan in the marvellous order of nature. 
How can an invisible, spiritual being reveal himself to other 
minds, if works appropriate to intelligence do not inspire a 
conviction of his presence and agency ? * 

* The argument from final causes in nature is not weakened by our in- 
ability to discern, in many cases, what they are, or by mistakes made in 



THE UNKEASONABLENESS OF ATHEISM. 481 

'Not is the force of this evidence weakened by the doc- 
trine of evokition, unless it is pushed into materialism, in 
which case it can be overthrown by irrefutable arguments. 
Suppose it were true that all animals — nay, all living 
things — could be traced back to a single germ, out of which 
they are developed in pursuance of certain law^s or tenden- 
cies. Then they were all contained in that germ. I^othing 
can be e-Yolved that was not before m-volved. What a mar- 
vel that gelatin — or protoplasm — or whatever it be called — 
in which are shut up all the living things that exist ? Who 
laid it in the properties — the tendency to variation, the ten- 
dency to permanence, and the rest — by the operation of which 
this endless variety, and beauty and order emerge ? You see 
that God is required as much as ever. This new doctrine, 
whether it be an established truth, or an unverified specula- 
tion, strikes at religion only when it assumes to deny the ex- 
istence of mind in the proper sense, and holds that thought 



presumptuous endeavors to point them out. The objection of Hume to 
aflBrming an analogy between works of nature and works of art, is futile, 
since in respect to design — the feature in both on which the argument 
turns — the analogy holds. The eye is an instrument employed by a ra- 
tional being for a purpose ; and when we see how it is fitted to this use, 
we cannot resist the persuasion that it was intended for it. The idea of 
the organ we discern, as Whewell well puts it : we have in our minds the 
idea of a final cause, and when we behold the eye, we find our idea ex- 
emplified. This idea, then, governed the construction of the eye, be its 
mechanical causes, the operative agencies that produced it, what they 
may. Every j9rt/'^ of an organized being, also, displays design ; for there 
is no better definition of a living thing than that of Kant, that in it every 
part is both means and end. Some talk of the "unknowable," but they 
contradict themselves by admitting in the same breath that the unknowa- 
ble is manifested as the first cause. They hold that it is only as a cause 
that we recognize its existence. But this cause is further manifested as 
intelligent and holy. Nothing can be more sophistical, than the remark 
of Herbert Spencer, that could the watch, in Paley's illustration, think, 
it would judge its Creator to be like itself, a watch. Could the watch 
think and choose, it would be rational, and would then reason like other 
rational beings, and conclude that the artificer of such a product as itself 
must have designed it beforehand — that is to say, must be a mind. 
31 



482 THE UNEEASONABLEXESS OF ATHEISM. 

is only a function of the brain, perishing with it. That is 
to saj, there is no fi-ee, conti'iving intelligence in man. 
What is called that, is only a product of the movement of a 
blind, nnintelligent force. Then, of course, we cannot con- 
clude that there is a free intelligence anywhere. But ma- 
teriahsm is not less fatal to morals than religion, for it anni- 
hilates responsibility. In truth, it is fatal to the higher life 
of man. It gives the lie to consciousness which testifies to 
our freedom, and to our guilt for wrong choices. It de- 
stroys the difference between truth and error in mental per- 
ception ; for both are equally the result of the molecular ac- 
tion of the brain, and equaUy normal. It provides no norm 
for distinguishing between the true and the false. It de- 
stroys science, f oi' who can say that the molecular movement 
by which science is thought out, may not at any time change 
its form, and give rise to conclusions utterly diverse ? There 
is no end to the absurdities of materialism ; a doctrine which 
can be maintained only by a disregard of phenomena, the 
reality and proper significance of which no reasonable person 
can caU in question. Let scientific exploration be carried to 
the farthest bound — it will never be able to dispense with 
God. It is plain that the world is a cosmos — a beautiful 
order. It came to be such by the operation of forces mov- 
ing steadily towards this end ; for anything like accident, or 
properly fortuitous events, science can never admit. The 
world is the necessary outcome of the agencies, be they few 
or many, near or remote, that gave rise to it. The time oc- 
cupied in the process is a point irrelevant ; were it a billion, 
or ten billions of years, a moment's thought transports us to 
the beginning, and the whole problem stares us in the face. 
There is a plan ; rational ends have been reached by adapta- 
tions and arrangements ; and thus God is revealed.^ 

* The statements made above are corroborated, it would seem, by re- 
marks of Professor Huxley, who says : "The teleological and the mechani- 
cal views of nature are, not necessarily, mutually exclusive. On the con- 
trary, the more purely a mechanist the speculator is, the more firmly does 



THE UNKEASONABLENESS OF ATHEISM. 483 

Thirdl}^, the folly of atheism appears in its failure to 
discern the revelation of God in the history of mankind. 
It ignores, also, the God of Providence. The history of 
mankind is not a chaotic jumble of occurrences, but an or- 
derly sequence where one set of events prepares for another, 

he assume primordial molecular arrangement, of which all the pheno- 
mena of the universe are consequences ; the more completely is he there- 
by at the mercy of the teleologist, who can always defy him to disprove 
that this primordial molecular arrangement was not intended to evolve 
the phenomena of the universe." Quoted in Jackson's Philosophy of 
Natural Theology^ p. 136. On the relation of evolution to theism and 
teleology, see the excellent remarks of Dr. A. Gray, in his Darwiniana 
(New York, 1876). The only escape from teleology is in the doctrine of 
an eternal sequence of causes and effects, a notion which, as Dr. Gray 
says, ' ' no sane man " will permanently hold. Such a notion is equivalent 
to a denial of all real causation, since the eternal regress can never bring 
US to the thing sought— a real cause which is not itself an effect. The 
principle of causation, as a subjective conviction, or demand of the intel- 
ligence, involves the belief in the reality of such a first cause. 

As to the question of the origin of man, it is evident, in the first place, 
that we are, on one side of our being, composed of matter. This is an 
undeniable fact. What is the origin of this material part ? It may be 
supposed that it was created outright, in the organized human form, by a 
fiat of the Almighty, when the first man was called into being. This is 
one supposition. Another is that man was made out of the " dust of the 
earth" — out of pre-existing inorganic matter. This is the mode of con- 
ception in the biblical writers. See Gen. iii. 19, Ps. xc. 3, civ. 29, cxlvi. 
4, Job X. 9, Eccl. iii. 20, Or, thirdly, it may be supposed that man was 
made out of previously existing organized matter — developed from a lower 
class of animal beings, either by easy gradations (according to the Dar- 
winian creed), or per saltum. If by slow gradations, the proposition 
amounts to this, that beings intermediate between man and existing or 
extinct lower animals, once lived on the earth. This remains to be 
proved, the intermediates not having been found. Neither of these hy- 
potheses necessarily denies the reality of the higher endowments of man. 
They impinge upon the Christian system only when they are connected 
with a denial of the distinctive qualities of man as a spiritual being— his 
free and responsible nature. Precisely how and when he received from 
the Creator this higher nature— the guomodo — is a question, however in- 
teresting, of secondary importance. It is only materialism— or, what is 
theologically equivalent, a monism which identifies soul and body — that 
cannot cohere with the truths of religion. 



484 THE UNREASONABLENESS OF ATHEISM. 

and where rational ends are wrought out by means adapted 
to them. There is a divine plan stamped upon history : 

" — thro' the ages one increasing purpose runs." 

And, irrespective of this plan, records of the past, it has 
been well said, have little more interest for ns than the bat- 
tles of crows and daws. There is a design connected with 
history: it is not an aimless course of events — a stream 
having no issue — a meaningless succession, or cycle of phe- 
nomena. N^ow the atheist shuts his eyes to the evident 
traces of a providential guidance and control of the world's 
affairs. It is chance, he says ; or if there is law, it is law 
without a law-giver. That moral government which ap- 
pears in the prosperity accorded to righteousness, and in the 
penalties that overtake iniquity — that sublime manifesta- 
tion of justice through all the annals of mankind — declares 
the presence of a just God. The minds of men, when un- 
perverted by false speculation, instinctively feel that God 
reigns, whenever they behold these providential allotments. 
It is necessary to stifle the voice of nature, and to resort to 
some far-fetched, unsatisfactory solution of the matter, in 
order to avoid this impression. In this way, the conscience 
of mankind convicts atheism of folly. 

Foiu-thly, atheism discerns not the revelation of God in 
Christ. God is manifest in the flesh. I waive all discus- 
sion of the Bible, its authority, and inspiration. The charac- 
ter of Jesus disclosed in the Gospel record could never have 
been imagined ; it vouches for its own reality, and thus for 
the history in and through which it is made known to us. 
In Christ there is a manifestation of God. The power that 
actuates him is not of the earth and not of man. The 
righteousness and love of the Father are reflected as in an 
image. The Father is known through the Son. In his 
face we behold the Invisible."^ His soul is obviously in un- 

* This impression was actually made on those most intimately associ- 
ated with him. See John i. 14, xiv. 9, Matt. xvi. 16. 



THE UNEEASONABLENESS OF ATHEISM. 485 

interrupted commHnion with the Father. When he quits 
the world, he says : " Father, into thy hands I commend 
my spirit." Was there no ear to hear that voice ? Was it 
lost in boundless space, obtaining no response? Then, 
verily, 

'* The pillared firmament is rottenness, 
And earth's base built on stubble. " 

Then let us draw a pall over life, with its flickering joys, 
soon to be quenched in eternal night. All that is most ele- 
vated, all that is most consoling, all that raises our destiny 
above that of the brutes that perish, is built on illusion ! 
There is no grand future, no serene hereafter, where the 
longing soul shall have its profoundest aspirations met in 
the fellowship of the spiritual woi'ld, and in the everlast- 
ing dominion of truth and righteousness. " Let us eat and 
drink, for to-morrow we die." The senses, at least, do not 
mock us. The pleasure that they give is real, as far as it 
goes. 

If atheism is a folly, is not sin at the root of it ? Is'ot, it 
maybe, a particular sinful practice, or conscious transgression, 
but a habit of feeling, which is wrong, and which spreads a 
film over the organ of spiritual perception. Can a man who 
reflects, as he ought, upon his own being, and deals honestly 
with himself as accountable and as convicted of unworthi- 
ness in his own conscience, rest in atheism ? Why is it that 
to one mind the heavens declare the glory of God, while 
to another mind their starry surface is a blank page ? It is 
because, in the one case, there is first a recognition of God 
within the soul ; there is a glad acknowledgment of the 
Father of our spirits, to whom consciousness and conscience 
alike testify. In the other case, there is darkness within. 

And how important it is that all progress in knowledge 
should bring us closer to God ! Alas, that the study of the 
works of God should ever be prosecuted in such a spirit 
that he is more and more removed out of sight ! Alas, that 



4:86 THE UNREASONABLENESS OF ATHEISM. 

the study of history should ever fail to confirm the scholar's 
faith in the God, of whose Providence history is the record ! 
Vain, nay, worse than in vain, are all our studies, if they 
fail to deepen our faith in God. The student's daily prayer 
should be 

— " what in me is dark 
Illumine, what is low, raise and support." 

Then will knowledge prove, indeed, a blessing. 

" Let knowledge grow from more to more. 
But more of reverence in us dwell ; 
That mind and soul, according well, 
May make one music as before, 

But vaster." 



THE APOSTLE PAUL. 487 



THE APOSTLE PAUL * 

There are two very different classes of persons, who, 
without any abuse of terms, may be called enemies of the 
Christian faith. In the one there is a latent hostility to 
principles that still find a secret approval in their own con- 
sciences. A more or less conscious opposition of their char- 
acters to truth that is known or surmised to exist in the 
Christian system is at the bottom of their hatred of it. Iq 
the other class, however, their enmity may be traced to a 
wrong bias of will, or perverse tempers of feeling, as the ul- 
timate source, the immediate, conscious ground of it is quite 
diverse. There is no immoral practice, no unrighteous 
course of conduct, that shrinks from the rebuke uttered in 
the Gospel. There is no guilty dread of the light ; there is 
no honest conviction smothered : but they hate Christianity 
because they misconceive its doctrine, or deem it to be at 
war with something which they hold as sacred truth. From 
their education, falling in, perhaps, with their native intel- 
lectual tendencies, or from some other influence, they have 
come to cherish, with their whole soul, beliefs that appear 
to clash with the Christian system. From their point 
of view, they cannot do otherwise than misjudge, and, 
it may be, detest it. Now, as one of this class can be 
moved to embrace the religion which he has hated, only by 
being enlightened ; so, in case he does embrace it, let the 
change be never so radical, there will be a certain continuity 
between his life before and his life after his conversion. 
His previous position, with whatever moral fault he may 

* A Lecture in Boston, in 1871, forming part of a course of Lectures by 
different persons, on Christianity and Skepticism. 



488 THE APOSTLE PAUL. 

cliarge himself, he can justly attribute to a misapprehension. 
His new views are a rectification of the old. Underneath 
the contrariety, there are some hidden threads of unity. 
The old conception has proved at least a stepping-stone to 
the new. Opposite as his new life seems to his former 
career, there is a logical and moral bond between the two. 
Paradoxical as it may appear, a thread of consistency passes 
over from the earlier to the later period of his history. 

In this class of antagonists of the Christian faith belonged 
Saul of Tarsus. He was, in a sense, an intensely religious 
man before he believed in Jesus of Xazareth. Religion, the 
relations of man to God, was the ruling, absorbing thought 
of his mind. It was not science or learning, or any purely 
mundane interest or occupation, that engaged his attention. 
It was religion — the relation of the soul to God and the su- 
pernatm-al order. And he was not less sincere in the pro- 
fession than he was earnest in the practice of his creed. If 
there were many Pharisees who delighted in the hollow 
reputation of sanctity — knaves and impostors, all whose 
thoughts centred in themselves — Paul was at the farthest 
remove from all such. He was elevated above the influence 
of a vulgar ambition, and he was an utter stranger to insin- 
cerity. There is no hint that he was impeded by any mis- 
givings when he was performing the part of an inquisitor 
agamst the disciples of Jesus. The phrase " It is hard for 
thee to kick agaiust the pricks," refers to no struggle in. his 
own mind : it simply asserts the futility of the attempt to 
withstand the progress of the new faith. He had entered 
on an abortive undertaking ; he had plunged into a hopeless 
enterprise : but he went into it with no divided mind. He 
verily thought that he ought to extirpate the new sect. He 
had no stifled misgivings, no scruples of conscience, on 
the subject. What he did he did ignorantly, in unbelief. 
He considered it afterwards a sin, but a sin of ignorance, the 
responsibility for which did not inhere in the act itself 
immediately, or in the opinion that dictated it. 



THE APOSTLE PAUL. 489 

Moreover, his ideal of character remained, in its general 
features, the same. Righteousness formed that ideal before 
he was converted, as well as after. In the earlier period, 
his idea of righteousness included both personal conformity 
to the standards of obligation,' and that unqualified citizen- 
ship in the theocracy which involved a title to all its bless- 
ings, and, among them, eternal life. Kighteousness, in this 
inward quality and outward relation, as a determination of 
the will and a consequent privilege, was to him the sum of 
all good. But now we come to the contrast. He first 
thought that the w^ay to attain righteousness, and the only 
way, was to obey the Mosaic statutes — the moral and cere- 
monial ordinances at the foundation of the Hebrew theo- 
cratic commonwealth. The Mosaic institute, in which ethi- 
cal and ritual precepts were interwoven, he conceived of as 
something permanent and eternal. That visible form of 
society, which had God for its direct author, w^as to endure 
as long as the sun and moon. There was no hope for man- 
kind except in the extension of this kingdom. Hence Paul 
joined the sect whose zeal to bring in the heathen moved 
them " to compass sea and land to make one proselyte ; " 
the sect at the head of that aggressive Judaism, the progress 
of which led a Roman philosopher to declare that the con- 
quered had given laws to the conquerors. Hence, too, the 
cause of the disciples of Jesus appeared to Paul in the light 
of an impious and treasonable revolt against the divine 
order. To uphold the theocratic state in full unity and 
vigor, and to extend the sway of it abroad, was the first 
duty. 

If, now, we look at Paul the apostle, we find him holding 
a different view of the place and ofiice of the Mosaic system 
in the divine plan. That system no longer fills his eye to 
the exclusion of everything else. It is only one link in the 
chain ; one stadium in the series of revelations. He has 
risen to a more comprehensive view of the divine dispensa- 
tions, where the function of the Old Testament law-system 
21* 



490 THE APOSTLE PAUL. 

is perceived to be subordinate and provisional ; as when, 
from a lofty tower, one sees mountains and plains stretch- 
ing far away beyond the previous boundaries of his vision. 
Abraham was before Moses; promise preceded law. The 
statutory system was an expedient, wholesome and necessary, 
not without sacred and everlasting elements incorporated 
with it, yet, as a system, destined to give place to a spiritual 
kingdom founded on a different principle. This kingdom is 
spiritual, the head of it being an invisible person to whom 
we are connected by faith which takes hold of the unseen. 
It is thus a free and universal religion, in contrast with the 
external, local, restricted theocracy. The vast revolution of 
sentiment which Paul's mind underwent might be termed a 
deeper insight into the philosophy of history. The philoso- 
phy of history, the science that aspires to interpret the plan 
of God in the course of human affairs, has its beginning in 
the Hebrew prophets. The problem that inspired Augus- 
tine to compose The City of God, and Edwards The History 
of Redemjption y the problem on which modern thinkers of 
so diverse character — Yico and Hegel, Bossuet and Herder 
— have labored — first presented itseK to the seers of Judaea 
and Israel. In that old state-system, where the little princi- 
pality of the Jews was surrounded by the mighty, conquer- 
ing empires of Assyria, Babylon, and Eg}^t, what chance 
had that feeble kingdom against the overwhelming odds ? 
What chance was there, when to the vast preponderance of 
force on the side of their neighbors there was added the in- 
fectious example of their idolatries ? Then it was that the 
prophets, called by the Spirit, sometimes from the sheep- 
pasture, their souls filled and exalted with the grand idea of 
an indestructible kingdom of God on earth, pointed to splen- 
did and opulent cities, the London and New York and Paris 
of that day, and predicted their downfall. They outstripped 
the sagacity of the profoundest of statesmen. Edmund 
Burke is admired with reason for anticipating events of the 
French Kevolution ; but Burke, in the very work that con- 



THE APOSTLE PAUL. 491 

tained these vaticinations, said also that the military strength 
of France had culminated, and was no more to be feared. 
And this prediction was uttered just before the wars of Na- 
poleon. What is there more sublime in literature, when all 
the circumstances are weighed, than the words of Scripture, 
— " There shall be a handful of corn in the earth upon the 
top of the mountains ; the fruit thereof shall shake like 
Lebanon ? " If one inquires for their fulfilment, let him be- 
hold the Christendom of to-day. The prophets themselves 
did not divine the full and exact sense of their own predic- 
tions. They had glimpses of the felicity of the kingdom in 
its future developed and mature form. A more spiritual 
worship was to characterize it ; a more unfettered and uni- 
versal character was to belong to it. Paul, after his conver- 
sion, entered into the import of these prophetical pictures, 
and found them verified and realized in the society that 
looked to Jesus as its head. The beginnings of this society 
antedated the law. The germ of it was in the theocracy it- 
self. But the kingdom of believing souls, as it existed be- 
fore, might exist now, independently of the Mosaic laws and 
institutions. Kegarded as a religious institute, they had 
fulfilled their end. 

But Paul would never have reached this view, his conver- 
sion w^ould have remained incomplete, had he not been 
driven outside of the law-system by the force of some in- 
ward experience. This was the painful conviction that he 
had been mistaken in supposing himself righteous. Instead 
of having attained that which he sought, he had fallen far 
short of it. He stood at a hopeless remove from the stand- 
ard of character which a deeper perception of human obli- 
gations revealed to him. With the loss of the sense of in- 
ward righteousness, his standing as a member of the divine 
kingdom was gone too. Instead of being a just or justified 
member of the theocratical community, he was a condemned 
person. Precisely how Paul came to discern, in tliis new 
light, the deep, spiritual demands of law, we have not the 



492 THE APOSTLE PAUL. 

means of answering. It may be, that, in the crisis of his 
conversion, teachings of Jesus were brought to his knowl- 
edge by some of the disciples who instructed him, and that 
these gave new life to his conscience. Mr. Matthew Arnold, 
in recent clever essays upon St. Paul, is correct in asserting 
that it was not fear that lay at the bottom of his distress. 
This, at least, was not the chief ingredient of that sharp 
anguish of spirit which he suffered : it was, rather, the sense 
of unrighteousness. It was the humiliation, the piercing 
self-reproach, the burden of a conscious bondage to evil, that 
afflicted his soul. His self-approbation was undermined. 
Instead of approving, he must abhor himself. But Mr. 
Matthew Arnold is wrong in ignoring the element of gTiilt 
as related to God, or the objective condemnation, that 
formed one part of Paul's misery. Paul, with aU the depth 
of his emotional nature, had none of the unhealthy, one-sided 
subjectiveness that pertains to modern pantheistic tendencies 
of thought. He was not shut up within the circle of his 
own sensibilities. He wished not only to be right before 
himself, but also to stand right before God. Besides the 
conscious servitude of his will to passion — the " video pro- 
boque meliora, deteriora sequor," of the heathen poet — there 
was the objective verdict of the righteous, infallible judge. 
Where did he get relief ? iSTot from the law, in whose com- 
manding and forbidding there was no force that could over- 
come the opposing propensities of his nature. The law could 
condemn and threaten ; but it could not create a principle of 
obedience. There was nothing in bare law to subvert the do- 
minion of sensuality and selfishness. The result was a feel- 
ing of vrretchedness, of self -despair. Paul turned to Jesus as 
a helper. Jesus had overcome in the conflict vsdth evil. He 
had died, but died victorious. The patient, self-denying 
sufferer was a factor in the struggle. There was a loveli- 
ness in Christ that touched the sympathies of Paul, and 
kindled the desire to walk as he walked ; and this desire was 
a new power in the soul, quite distinct from the influence of 



THE APOSTLE PAUL. 493 

law. But moral admiration, deepening into sympathy, is not 
the whole of what the apostle meant by faith. There was a 
love from Jesus to him ; there was a compassion of God, un- 
derlying the whole mission of Jesus. That love and com- 
passion Paul believed in. The helper whom he received 
was no distant hero, who exerted power only through an in- 
spiring example ; but he was invisibly present, to support, 
by the mysterious influence of spirit upon spirit, the new 
life which he had awakened. Hold what particular view 
one may of the Pauline doctrine as to the significance of the 
death of Jesus, it is evi(ient that Paul saw in it the means 
and the assurance of forgiveness. There is a foundation in 
his teaching for the ordinary Protestant idea of forensic jus- 
tification. Pigliteousness had always to him a double aspect : 
it was both an internal quality and an outward relation. But 
what the law could not do was accomplished through the per- 
sonal influence of Christ upon the soul united to him in sym- 
pathy and dependence. JN'othing in^ Kenan's book upon St. 
Paul is more groundless than the implication that his per- 
sonal character was little altered by his becoming a Christian. 
A new spirit of love took possession of his nature. In the 
room of the fierce temper of a persecuting zealot, we find a 
genuine humility, a constant inculcation of kindness and 
charity. When it is remembered that he was naturally 
high-spirited, and perhaps irritable, this change is the more 
touching. "Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, good- 
ness, faith, meekness, temperance " — these are the traits on 
which he dwells. Against these, he says, there is no law. 
But they are not the fruit of law : they are the fruit of the 
Spirit. They have their springs in the relation of the soul 
to Christ. In this relation there was a great liberty. In 
regard to these many virtues and their opposites, the apostle 
writes, "Ye are not under the law." It is the Christian 
paradox of a correspondence to the law, but from motives 
and impulses to the law unknown. It was not the constraint 
of a statute ; but " the love of Christ constraineth us." 



494: THE APOSTLE PAUL. 

Observe, now, tlie order in which this conversion, in its 
different parts or constituent elements, took place. It did 
not begin with new ideas of the spiritual character of the 
law, and with a. sense of sin ; but the historical evidence 
necessitates the conclusion, that a recognition of the truth 
of the claims of Jesus was the first step. The apostle him- 
self, in his writino-s, attributes the chano^e to a sudden reve- 
lation. Up to a certain moment, he had thought that he 
ought to put down the Christians by force. There was no 
intermediate process of reflection and inquiry between this 
state of feeling and his acknowledgment of Jesus as the 
ascended Lord and Messiah. He expressly affirms that this 
primary conviction was not imparted to him by the other 
apostles through the exhibition of proofs. How, then, did 
he obtain it ? It was not by reflecting on the death of 
Jesus ; for, apart fi'om the consideration that his flrst belief 
resulted from no process of examination, the death of Jesus 
was, to his mind, one of the strongest arguments against the 
verity of his pretensions. To him, as to other Jews, the 
cross was a stumbling-block — an insuperable obstacle in the 
way of faith. It is impossible, then, that he could have 
believed in Jesus, except through some disclosm^e of him, 
real or supposed, as triumphant over death, in a higher and 
glorifled form of existence. Therefore the testimony of 
Paul on the mode of his conversion, while it accords with 
the probabilities of the case, tends to corroborate the narra- 
tive of Luke respecting the jom-ney to Damascus. It is re- 
markable, however, and characteristic of Paul, that, besides 
the vision or revelation that formed the primary source of 
his belief, he discerns the value of external testimony. The 
resurrection of Jesus is verifled, he affirms, by eye-witnesses, 
whom he enumerates, presenting the evidence in a circum- 
stantial manner. There was a series of interviews of the 
risen Jesus : flrst with Peter ; then with the Twelve ; then 
with flve hundred brethren, of whom the greater part, he 
says, were then living ; after that with James ; then again 



THE APOSTLE VAVL. 495 

with all the apostles. It was a true and real manifestation 
of Jesus, in bodily form, to the senses of the disciples. The 
testimony is such, considering the panic and despair of the 
witnesses after the crucifixion, and the outward circumstan- 
ces, as to exclude the idea of an hallucination ; but it was a 
manifestation to the disciples and believers alone. The fact 
of the resurrection of Jesus was an indispensable condition 
of the apostle's faith in him. 

Here we fall out once more with Mr. Matthew Arnold, 
who is duly impressed with the truth that Jesus, in the 
might of his holy love to God and men, died to sin and the 
world ; that this inward death was perfected and shown in 
his death on the cross, and was the means of a true, spirit- 
ual, eternal life, of which all who are united to him in sym- 
pathy are enabled to partake. This, without doubt, is a 
vital part of Paul's religion ; but it is not the whole. His 
faith rested on objective realities. Beyond his own subjec- 
tive impressions and feelings, there must be the word of 
God. The resurrection of Jesus proved the acceptance of 
him as a Redeemer : it was the counterpart, the sign and 
necessary consequence, of his complete victory over sin. 
Without that verifying act of God, faith had no objective 
support, and was vain. The soundness of the apostle's con- 
ception of religion, as a relation to God, instead of a mere 
round of inward experiences, where the subjective feeling 
goes for every thing, appears very strikingly at this point. 
The pantheistic drift of much of our modern speculation 
gets no countenance from him ; and yet where shall we find 
an equal richness and depth of spiritual experience, or so 
profound a representation of what may be called the subjec- 
tive side of the Gospel ? To die with Christ in his death, 
'to live to Christ, to live because Christ lives in him — these 
are his familiar thoughts. But as the death of Jesus on the 
cross fulfilled and expressed his inward dying to the world, 
so did his resurrection express and demonstrate his life in 
God. 



496 THE APOSTLE PAUL. 

By the resurrection of Jesus to a spiritual and glorified 
form of existence, lie becomes the head of a kingdom funda- 
mentally different from that of the Jewish dispensation. 
The kingdom has shuffled off the carnal form which it had 
previously worn. The former requirements and ceremonies 
are something quite heterogeneous to its present mode of 
being. When Paul declares that he does not any longer 
know Jesus, according to the flesh, as a Jew, the member 
of a particular nation, with local and national associations 
upon him, he sets forth in the strongest possible manner, in 
a manner even startling, his consciousness of the altered 
character of the kingdom. The throne is not at Jerusalem, 
but in heaven. The offering is not bulls and goats, but our 
body and spirit, a reasonable — that is, a spiritual, or inward 
— service. The temple is not on Mount Zion, but is the 
soul of the believer. The whole conception turns on the 
fact of the resurrection and ascension of Jesus. 

One might anticipate what attitude a man of Paul's logi- 
cal intellect and fervid spirit, who held nothing by halves, 
would assume towards Judaism and Judaizing tendencies in 
the church. A great amount of ingenuity has been ex- 
pended of late in an effort to exhibit Paul as at variance 
with the other apostles on the subject of the admission of 
Gentiles to the church, and on the whole matter of their 
relation to the Old Testament ritual. As a means to this 
end, a deliberate attempt has been made to impeach the ve- 
racity of Luke ; or, rather, of the author of the book of 
Acts, whom the negative criticism denies to have been Luke. 
This last attempt breaks down, not only from the variety 
and weight of evidence in behalf of the genuineness and 
historical credibility of the book in question, but also from 
the failure to establish any contradiction between the gen- 
eral representations of Paul himself in his admitted epistles 
and the testimony of the Acts. These points are clear from 
Paul's own statement — that Peter, James, and John re- 
quired of the Gentiles nothing more than he required ; that 



THE ArOSTLE PAUL. 497 

the J recognized liim as an apostle ; that they rejoiced in the 
conversion of the heathen converts when it was reported to 
them ; that they approved of the contents of his preaching, 
and bade him God-speed when he went forth on his errand, 
tliey asking and receiving at his hand charities for the poor 
Christians at Jerusalem from the churches which he planted. 
At the same time, it was inevitable, and it is perfectly clear, 
that the original band of apostles, the first disciples of 
Christ, did not have at the outset that clear perception, and, 
with the exception of John, probably never had that sharp 
and vivid perception, of the antithesis of the new system to 
the old, which had seized on the convictions of Paul. The 
reason is, that, under the teaching of Jesus, they came out 
of the old system by a more imperceptible transition. Their 
religious life was a growth, in which their traditional ideas 
were gradually corrected and supplanted. They had never 
entered with so intense earnestness into legal Judaism as 
Paul had. They had not, like him, to renounce a definite 
system to which they had committed themselves with all 
their hearts, and from which they were parted by a sudden 
access of light. Analogous phenomena occur at the present 
day among those who enter upon a Christian life. In some 
cases there is a conscious, abrupt revolution ; in other cases. 
Christian character springs almost imperceptibly out of 
Christian training. A diversity in the mode of looking at 
the Gospel is the natural consequence. The wonder is that 
the Galilean apostles could so entirely emancipate them- 
selves from habitual, inherited impressions, as to welcome 
the heathen converts who had not been circumcised, and ex- 
tend a cordial fellowship to Paul. But he was not only 
ready to tolerate the Gentiles in the acceptance of the bene- 
fits of the Gospel : he would carry these benefits to them. 
He would enter into the broad field that opened itself far 
and wide before him. 

The effect of such a course must be to excite the malig- 
nant hostility of his Jewish countrymen. He must appear 



498 THE APOSTLE PAUL. 

to tliem in the light of an apostate, and become the object 
of that vindictive hatred which partisans feel towards a 
renegade who has deserted his associates and passed over 
into the camp of the enemy. But the development of the 
Jndaizing principle within the church was destined to be 
still more mischievous and annoying. 'Not all of the Phari- 
sees who were converted had Paul's clearness of perception, 
nor had they tested by so thorough a personal trial the legal 
method of salvation. Hence they held with stubborn tena- 
city to the idea that the door into the church was through 
the Judaic rite of circumcision. To concede this, as Paul 
saw, was to give up the Gospel as a spiritual and universal 
religion, to curtail the office of Christ as a Saviour, and to 
sacrifice the liberty of the heathen convert by subjecting 
them to a burdensome ritual. To maintain his position on 
this point was the battle of his life. By his instrumen- 
tality, more than by that of any other, Christianity was 
saved from sinking down into a Jewish sect. 

In the encounter with Jews and Judaizers, Paul had an 
objection to meet, which at first must have perplexed his 
own mind, and which his opponents would not fail to urge 
with the utmost emphasis. Were not the Jews the people 
of God ? "Were they not a chosen nation ? As such, were 
they not to receive the blessings of salvation? When it 
was found that comparatively few of the Jews believed in 
Jesus, and when the number of Gentile converts was rapidly 
increasing, these questions could not fail to arise. " If you 
are right," said the unbelieving Jew to Paul, " what becomes 
of election and the promises ? " And the Judaizing be- 
liever repeated the inquiry. This brings the apostle to the 
matter of predestination and election. I do not propose to 
discuss the interpretation of the ninth chapter of the Epistle 
to the Komans — the field which has been trodden for so 
many generations by contending armies of theological com- 
batants — except to say that it was no part of the apostle's 
idea to offer a metaphysical solution of the old problem of 



THE APOSTLE PAUL. 499 

liberty and necessity, any more than it was his design, in 
the fifth chapter, to solve the mystery of original sin. All 
that I propose is to point out the historical occasion of his 
introducing the subject. The actual rejection of Christ by 
a great majority of the Jewish people forced him to con- 
sider their selection by God, and what the nature of it was. 
In short, it opened up what we have called the philosophy 
of history, the character of the Jewish dispensation. There 
had not been a strict adherance to the hereditary principle 
on the part of God in constituting the chosen people. The 
principle of legitimacy, so to speak, had been set aside by 
his decree. He had not, as a matter of fact, been bound, in 
the past, by the mere consideration of lineage. Isaac was 
not the only child of Abraham, and Jacob was an example 
of a deviation from the natural order of succession ; the 
reason being, in both cases, the divine choice and appoint- 
ment. Therefore the Jewish theory of hereditary claims 
and exclusive national rights was a false one, as their own 
history proved. What should prevent God, then, if he saw 
fit, from giving the blessing of salvation to the Gentiles ? 
There was no principle of the divine administration that 
imposed any fetters upon his will in this particular. Hence, 
if the Jews lost the gift, and the heathen received it, no one 
had a right to charge the Divine Being with inconsistency, 
or a disregard of lawful claims. But Paul does not leave 
the discussion without bringing forward his usual doctrine — 
that the blessings of grace are transmitted in the line of 
faith, instead of that of carnal descent. It is not member- 
ship in a race, but faith, that puts one in possession of them, 
as the narrative of Abraham himseK proved. The Calvinist 
will always point to the apostle's language about Pharaoh, 
and to the illustration of the potter and the clay ; the Ar- 
minian will appeal to his declaration, that the reason why 
Israel had not attained to righteousness is because " they 
sought it not by faith," and that the rejection of Israel is tem- 
porary until the Gentiles have been gathered into the church. 



500 THE APOSTLE PAUL. 

Both iinite in denying salvation by works or human merit, 
and in attributing all the praise to God : and this was the 
truth which the apostle had most at heart. I have often 
thought, that, had I the genius of TTalter Savage Landor, I 
would compose an imagmary conversation between John 
Calvin and John "\\^esley, two men who were equals in firm- 
ness of conviction and energy of will, and with an ardor 
that impels them to pour out abmidant anathemas against 
the doctrines that offend them. To "Wesley, election meant 
the divine authorship of sin, and insincerity in the invita- 
tions of the Gospel ; to Calvin, the denial of election meant 
salvation by merit, and the insecm-ity of the trembling and 
tempted believer. Each fights the inferences that he de- 
duces from the doctrine of the other ; and each denies that 
the inferences of his opponent are f au-ly di^awn. But how 
insignificant is the real difference between them when com- 
pared with what they hold in common ! It is one conse- 
quence of the historical method of exegesis, which, in con- 
nection with a more correct philosophy, characterizes the 
biblical interpretation of the present time, that a new point 
of view is often gained, fi^om which difficulties are lessened, 
and the rigid interpretation of the dogmatical school is 
modified by the infusion of a more genial, penetrative, and 
catholic spirit. Even Peter did not find the style of Paul 
very perspicuous. His impetuous mind does not stop to fill 
otit a chain of reasoning, or guard an illustration fi'om a 
possible misuse. His swift mmd leaves gaps for the reader 
himseK to supply. His thoughts, in their hurry, jostle one 
another : and parenthesis is thrown within parenthesis to 
help him in the utterance of them. Before one idea is 
fully expressed, it is overtaken by another ; as a wave flow- 
ing into the shore is chased and overrun by the wave be- 
hind it. Hence, of all writers, he requires breadth and in- 
sight in the interpreter who would explore his meaning. 

The Pauline type of doctrine is frequently brought into 
comparison with the types of doctrine presented in the Epis- 



THE ArOSTLE PAUL. 501 

tie of James and the writings of John. It is more obvious 
to students of the Bible now than formerly, that the inspi- 
ration of the apostles did not operate to supersede, but to in- 
tensify, their native faculties of mind. It was dynamic, not 
mechanical, in its mode of action. The effect of it was or- 
ganic — to elevate, to guide, to purify the powers of intellect 
and feeling, but not to supplant them, and not to extinguish 
their peculiarities, or check their free movement, as by an 
agency exerted upon them from without. 'Nor did inspira- 
tion interfere with the individuality of religious character 
that belonged to the apostles. What type their piety as- 
sumed varied with their natural traits. They w^ere all de- 
pendent on Christ, and moulded by his influence ; but, like 
various musical instruments touched by the same hand — the 
lute, the organ, and the harp, which give forth various tones 
and strains of melody — so is the characteristic nature of each 
of the apostles manifest. The inspiration of the apostles 
differs from the inspiration that has produced the master- 
pieces of literature — first, that the former relates to relig- 
ious and ethical truth ; and, secondly, that the products of it 
are verified to us, and, for this reason, endued with author- 
ity. The divine agency here includes a miraculous element, 
by which the sacred books are set apart from all human 
productions ; even the loftiest efforts of genius, though gen- 
ius may handle the themes of religion. But the human ele- 
ment, out of which grow the individuality, naturalness, and 
personal living force of the apostolic writers, is not less evi- 
dent than the divine element which has imparted to them an 
inexhaustible, as it is an altogether unique, power. When 
we compare Paul with James, we perceive that James puts 
forth no contrary doctrine on the method of salvation. 
When he declares that faith without works is dead, he shows 
that he conceives of faith as containing a seed of virtue or 
holy living, so that good works are not an adjunct of faith, 
but a necessary fruit. Faith has lost its vitality, it resembles 
a corpse, when it no longer produces right and benevolent 



502 THE APOSTLE PAFL. 

conduct. This is precisely the conception of Paul. As to 
his relations to John, it is common to designate the one as 
the apostle of faith, and the other of love. There are cur- 
rent sayings like that of Schelling, who marks off three pe- 
riods of the church : the first being the age of Peter, the era 
of law and ecclesiastical order ; the second, the age of Paul, 
the era when faith is held in highest honor, the age of Prot- 
estantism ; and the third, the age of John, the coming age 
of love. Eenan thinks to disparage Paul by calling him a 
Protestant, the forerunner and author of Protestantism. But 
turn to the thirteenth chapter of the First Epistle to the Cor- 
inthians : " JN'ow abideth faith, hope, love — these three ; but 
the greatest of these is love." Without love, he declares, all 
gifts are worthless — the gift of tongues ; the gift of prophecy 
— the eloquence of the preacher ; the gift of knowledge — all 
intellectual superiority ; the gift of faith, by which miracles 
were performed ; the habit of alms-giving without stint ; the 
martyr-spirit — all are of no account without the love, which 
includes a gentle, forgiving temper ; is the opposite of envy 
and jealousy, of mistrust, of rudeness and indecorum, of 
pride and boasting ; the love which delights at seeing men 
good, and deplores their sin ; that is patient under the bur- 
dens of life ; that leaves no room for self-seeking. Love 
alone is the imperishable virtue : faith will give way to 
sight, and hope to fruition. " On each side of this chapter," 
says Dean Stanley, "the tumult of argument and remon- 
strance still rages ; but within it all is calm : the sentences 
move in almost rhythmical melody ; the imagery unfolds it- 
self in almost dramatic propriety ; the language arranges it- 
self with almost rhetorical accuracy. We can imagine how 
the apostle's amanuensis must have paused to look up in his 
master's face, and seen his countenance lighted up as it had 
been the face of an angel, as this vision of divine perfection 
passed before him." ]^ow turn to John ; and what do we 
meet with at the beginning of his Gospel ? — " To as many 
as received him, to them gave he power to be the sons of 



THE APOSTLE PAUL. 503 

God ; even to tliem that believe on his name." Later we 
read : " This is the work of God, to believe on him whom 
he hath sent." The love to him who hath first loved us, on 
which John dwells — what is it but faith ? We believe in a 
love to us that has gone before all love on our side. Respon- 
sive love implies faith. Faith, in the doctrine of Paul and 
John alike, is the connection of the soul with Christ, from 
which love and all other parts of goodness result. The unity 
of apostolic doctrine lies in the common view of Christ as 
the one source of life. He is the vine, sending life and 
fruitfulness through the branches. 

Had Paul been less pure and disinterested in character, 
he would infallibly have been made the head of a party ; 
but when he heard of the attempt at Corinth to set him in 
this position, and to organize a sect to be called by his name, 
he repelled the project with indignation. It was a kind of 
man- worship, and a dishonor to Christ, from which his 
whole nature recoiled. ' Who, then,' he said, ' is Paul ? 
Who is Paul ? Was Paul crucified for you ? Paul and 
Apollos are but ministers ; and shall the servant usurp the 
place of his Lord ? ' 

in connection with his warm utterances on this subject, he 
tells us how to look upon uninspired authors of systems of 
ethics and theology. There is only one foundation ; and 
that is Christ, and his work as a Saviour. Whoever builds 
on this foundation is a Christian teacher ; but he may mingle 
in his system, in the superstructure which he builds up by 
the effort of his intellect, wood, hay, and stubble, or ele- 
ments of doctrine that will not endure the searching test. 
Building on the true foundation, he is personally saved ; but 
the system that he has created is a human work, is liable to 
imperfection, and will, at last, be sifted. In this light the 
great system-makers in the church — as Origen, Augustine, 
Aquinas, Calvin, Edwards — are to be regarded. Their un- 
dertaking is legitimate : they may render a great service in 
the exposition and defence of truth ; but they are not au- 



504: THE APOSTLE PAUL. 

tlioritative teachers ; and, when an undue deference is paid 
to them, Christ loses the place that belongs to him. If Paul 
was offended that his name should be given to a party in the 
church, is there not, to say the least, an equal objection to 
the practice of Christians, in later ages, of arraying them- 
selves under the banner of some favorite theologian ? 

Turning now from the doctrine to glance at the work of 
the apostle Paul, we find him, by the natural bent of his 
mind, a missionary. After, as before his conversion, he was 
a propagandist. A life of contemplative devotion would 
have been intolerable to him. His favorite metaphor is 
drawn from the race-com'se : athletes and soldiers are his 
types of Christian manliness. There is one popular idea 
respecting Paul, which, I think, is ill-founded. He is fre- 
quently styled a learned man. It is true that he may be 
called a scholar, so far as the Old Testament Scriptures and 
the theology and casuistry of the Jewish schools are con- 
cerned. As an intellectual man, he is to be rated above 
most, and probably all, of the apostles, who belonged to 
what was considered by their countrymen the uneducated 
class. But there is no sufficient groimd for supposing that 
Paul was a learned man in the sense in which this term is 
generally applied to him. It is not probable that he had 
studied the Greek authors. Remember that he was of the 
stock of Israel, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; born, not of 
proselytes, but of Hebrew parentage on both sides. It is 
not improbable that his father or grandfather had been a 
captive in war, and, being emancipated, had acquired the 
right of citizenship which descended to Paul. But his 
father, though living in Tarsus, a cultivated city, was a rigid 
Jew. Had he found his son reading a pagan writer, it is 
likely that he would have dealt with him as one of our Puri- 
tan ancestors would have treated a child whom he had caught 
reading the tales of Boccaccio. Transferred at an early age 
to Jerusalem, he sat at the feet of the Jewish doctor, Gama- 



THE APOSTLE PAUL. 505 

liel. Here the method of instruction was interlocutory ; a 
stimulating method, which was practised also by the masters 
of Greek philosophy, and is too little in vogue in our mod- 
ern schemes of education. Gamaliel is represented in the 
Jewish tradition as more tolerant in reference to Greek wis- 
dom than most of the rabbis of that day. He gave advice 
to the Sanhedrim that might indicate that the apostles had 
made some impression on him of a favorable kind ; but, on 
the other hand, might imply an expectation on his part that 
the new sect would soon die a natural death. The president 
of the Sanhedrim, it is not probable that he had any real in- 
clination towards the Christian doctrine, except as far as it 
recognized the belief in a resurrection, which the Pharisees 
also cherished. But, whatever was the temper of the teach- 
er, we know very w^ell what were the sentiments and spirit 
of the pupil. " After the straitest sect of our religion," he 
says, " I lived a Pharisee ; . . . . concerning zeal, perse- 
cuting the church." After his conversion, and his return 
from Arabia, he spent several years again at Tarsus. Here 
it is reasonable to suppose that he came in contact with dis- 
ciples of the Greek philosophy ; in particular, of the Stoic 
system, of which Tarsus was a flourishing seat. The occa- 
sional use of Stoic phraseology and maxims, in a new and 
higher application, in his writings, is certainly remarkable, 
and may be owing to opportunities of personal intercourse 
with Stoic teachers which he then enjoyed. His coinci- 
dences, extending even to forms of expression, with Seneca, 
are much more reasonably ascribed to that sort of acquain- 
tance with Stoic doctrine than to a personal acquaintance of 
the two men ; a supposition which has little evidence in its 
favor. But what is the proof that he was possessed of the 
erudition that is sometimes attributed to him ? A passage 
that occurs in the poet Aratus, who happens to have been a 
native of Tarsus, to the effect that we are the offspring of 
God (Acts xvii. 28) ; and a hexameter line, which occurs in 
Epimenides, on the bad qualities of the Cretans (Tit. i. 12). 
23 



506 THE APOSTLE PAUL. 

But these sayings, it is likely, were scraps in general circu- 
lation, and no more indicate a familiarity witli Greek authors 
than the repetition of the words, " An honest man is the no- 
blest work of God," with the accompanying remark, that it 
is an utterance of some of the English poets, proves a man 
to be conversant with English literature. There is no indi- 
cation in Paul's writings, and no proof from any quarter, 
that he had read ^schylus or Homer, Plato or Demosthenes, 
or any other classic writer of heathen antiquity. Had he 
studied either of these authors, it is hardly possible that dis- 
tinct traces of this fact should be missing from his writings. 
The style, as well as the contents, of his letters, would ex- 
hibit signs of a culture so diverse from that which the rab- 
bis afforded. The " much learning " which, as Festus thought, 
had made Paul mad, was converse with Jewish, not Gentile 
books ; and of this matter Festus was a poor judge, learning 
being a source of insanity to which he had probably taken 
care not to expose himself. Perhaps the impression to which 
we refer in respect to Paul's Gentile learning may have 
sprung from a natural wish of some minds to have one 
among the apostles who could lay claim to this distinction. 
It reminds one of the lavish praise that it was once the cus- 
tom of preachers to bestow on the scientific acquirements of 
the first man ; as when Robert South says that Aristotle was 
but the rubbish of Adam, and Athens the ruins of Paradise. 
But Paul is indebted for his eminence to sources of power 
far higher than literature and science can confer. It was 
impossible that all vestiges of his rabbinical training should 
be cast aside ; but they serve as a foil to set off more im- 
pressively the native vigor of his mind. If he did not de- 
vote himself to the study of the heathen authors, he fuUy 
comprehended heathenism as a religious phenomenon. The 
religious aspiration that lies at the root of heathen worship 
is pointed out in the discourse at Athens. The origin of 
idolatry is revealed in the opening chapter of the Epistle to 
the Romans. The responsibility of those who have not 



HE APOSTLE PAUL. 507 

been tauglit by a written revelation is proved by referring 
to tlie testimony of their own consciences and the law writ- 
ten on the heart. IIow was the declaration of the Saviour, 
that " salvation is of the Jews," verified afresh when this 
" Hebrew of the Hebrews " stood on Mars' Hill, and proclaim- 
ed to an audience of Athenians Jesus and the resurrection ! 
Among the qualifications of Paul for his peculiar work as 
a propagator of the gospel and a founder of churches, the 
singular blending of enthusiasm with prudence in his nature 
deserves attention. There was a fire which no difficulties 
that stood in his path could quench ; but along with it there 
was a moderation, the temperance or sobriety, which kept 
him back from all extravagance. He unites a zeal, which 
one might think w^ould brook no restraint, with a wonder- 
ful tact and shrewdness. A certain sagacity, or good sense, 
presides over his conduct. His burning zeal never runs 
into fanaticism. At the right time, he knows how^ to con- 
sult expediency. When we find these apparently incongru- 
ous qualities combined in the champion of any cause, we may 
look out for great results. These traits mingle in the char- 
acter of such a statesman as Cromwell, and in the founders 
of some of the great religious orders in the Catholic Church. 
The history of Paul contains many examples of the oppor- 
tune exercise of this prudence and tact. He would not 
yield an inch to the demand of the Judaizers when the 
principle was at stake, even though Peter was seduced to give 
them his tacit support ; but he rebuked this leading apostle 
in pointed terms. Yet he would go very far in making 
concessions to remove the m.isunderstanding and prejudice 
of the Jews, and to pacify Jewish feeling that w^as offended 
by his apparently radical proceedings. Before the Sanhe- 
drim he contrived, by avowing himself a believer in one of 
the doctrines of the Pharisees, to kindle a strife between 
the two schools of doctors, in the smoke of w^hich he effected 
his escape. He was not afraid of the face of man : he did 
not tremble before the furious mob at Jerusalem, and he 



508 THE APOSTLE PAUL. 

stood before Xero without quailing. But he was not the 
man to throw awaj his life ; and he did not think it undig- 
nified to be let down in a basket from the wall of Damascus. 
He had no heroic moods that moved him to fling away a 
reasonable caution. His courtesy to heathen magistrates, 
even bad men, is in marked contrast with the temper of a 
fanatic. A refinement and delicacy of sentiment are never 
wanting. He considers it a superstition to refuse to eat the 
meat of animals that have been killed at the altars of Jupi- 
ter, Diana, or l^eptune ; but he would di*ive nobody into 
doing wdiat he felt to be wrong, however unfounded his 
scruples might be. He would not, like a fanatic, insist on 
the outward act before the conviction was ripe for it. In a 
kind of chivalry of tenderness, as one has called it, he would 
himself abstain from eating such meat, if his example was 
to mislead a weak and superstitious brother into the doing 
of a right thing against his conscience. The practical wis- 
dom, or sobriety, of Paul, is illustrated on a point where an 
ignorant criticism has often condemned or sneered at him — 
in what he says of the dress and deportment of Christian 
women. He paid a proper respect to the ancient ideas of 
decorum, not wishing unnecessarily to stir up a prejudice 
where there was already hostility enough against the infant 
churches. Paul is censured for the very things that pre- 
vented the churches from being broken up by tumults with- 
in, and by enmity and suspicion without. He knew just 
where to draw the line between a Christian independence 
and a reckless fanaticism. He would do more than excite a 
commotion : he would organize and build on enduring foun- 
dations. I wish that all zealots for social reforms would 
spend the time which they devote to supercilious criticism 
upon Paul in the humble study of his life. Let me observe 
here, that no man has given a higher honor to woman, or set 
a higher dignity and sacredness upon marriage, than the 
apostle who makes it the symbol of the union of Christ with 
his church. 



THE APOSTLE PAUL. 509 

The sympathy of Paul with his fellow-disciples, with his 
countrymen, and witli all men, " Greeks and Barbarians," 
made self-sacrifice the habit of his life. He clasped the lit- 
tle churches as children in his arms. In his communications 
to them, he poured out his tender solicitude and more than 
paternal affection. All that he is, all that he experienced, 
is for them. Whether he is afflicted or consoled, it is a 
divine appointment for their benefit. Any form of spirit- 
ual good that he may possess is not for himself, but has 
been given that it might be imparted again to them. A 
beautiful instance of this identification of himself with his 
brethren is found in the passage (2 Cor. i. 4) in which he 
speaks with gratitude of the comfort which he had received 
from God, " who comforteth us in all our tribulation, tJiat 
we may he ahle to comfort them which are in any trouble hy 
the comfort wherewith we are comforted of GodP So deep 
is his sympathy for his kinsmen of the race of Israel, that 
he would himself willingly be cut off and cursed for their 
sake ! A power in itself, the self-denying love of the apostle 
called out all his energies, and kept them directed to a sin- 
gle end. 

The absorbing religious consecration of Paul is the lead- 
ing feature in his character. His earnest, strenuous devo- 
tion to the word to which he had been called by the Master 
had no intermission, and knew no rest. It must not be for- 
gotten that we have in the book of Acts a sketch of only a 
fragment of Paul's missionary career, which covered, in all, 
a period of thirty years. In the reference that he incident- 
ally makes to the perils, indignities, and hardships to which 
he had been subject — how he had been scourged and 
stoned ; had fallen among robbers ; been exposed to the 
plots of hostile Jews and treacherous disciples, to hunger 
and cold ; burdened with the care of churches only just con- 
verted from paganism — he mentions that thrice he had ex- 
perienced shipwreck. This was written before the occur- 
rence of the shipwi'eck on tho shore of Malta, which is de- 



510 THE APOSTLE PAUL. 

scribed by Luke. There is a vast, unrecorded history of 
toil, anxiety, persecution, casualty ; chapters of biography 
irrecoverably lost, but all the more pathetic for the veil that 
hangs over them. His life was one long campaign. So 
he himself felt at the close. He could look back and say 
that he had fought a good fight. It is interesting to notice 
that the great idea of righteousness, the one idea that had 
engaged his thoughts from childhood, was still before his 
mind : " Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of 
righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will 
give me." 

I must gather up, in the briefest compass, a few of the 
lessons for our time, and for all tune, whi.ch are drawn from 
the glimpses we have taken of the character and career of 
the Apostle to the Gentiles. 

He is an eloquent witness to the supremacy that belongs 
to religion, in Christian teaching, as in the lives of men. 
The inculcation of justice and charity among men is never 
to be neglected ; but the life of ethics is in religion. The 
recovery of men to God is the prime end of the Gospel. 
The preaching of Paul was a beseeching of men, in the 
name of Christ, to be reconciled to God. 

In all Christian ages, Paul is a witness against ritualism 
— if by ritualism is meant a dependence upon external rites 
and an earthly priesthood. Imagine a ritualist of this de- 
scription thanking God that he had baptized only Caius and 
Crispus and a few other individuals, as Paul says of the 
church at Corinth, with which he stood in such intimate re- 
lations ! At the Reformation, it was the voice of Paul that 
called men away from human mediators to Christ, and broke 
up the reign of the mediaeval system of religion. As long 
as the Epistle to the Galatians remains, it will be impossible 
for Judaizing Christianity permanently to triumph in the 
church. 



THE APOSTLE PAUL. 511 

How is Christ exalted when we look at the greatness of 
Paul and the greatness of his influence ! Luther said that 
the spiritual miracles were the greatest. Paul, in all that 
constitutes the excellence of his character and influence, was, 
as he himself felt in his inmost soul, only one effect of Christ. 
The splendor of the planet is not its own, but is derived 
from the sun round which it revolves. In this dependent 
relation Paul consciously stood to Christ. When we con- 
template such a disciple, are not the power and rank of the 
Master felt to be altogether unique? Is there not some 
other, transcendent distinction between Paul and Christ be- 
sides that of the degree of moral excellence that belonged to 
them respectively ? The love of Christ to him was the one 
great consolation and joy, from which no event, and no 
power, human or superhuman, could separate him. There 
is something in the bare relation of this disciple to his Lord, 
apart from all specific declarations, which impresses us with 
the conviction that Christ, in the apostle's view, was more 
than a morally perfect man. Lie stands forth as the divine 
author of a new spiritual creation. 

The best fruit that we can gather from a view of the life 
of Paul is a rebuke for the languid spirit that belongs to our 
service of the Master, and a spur to a more unselfish, earnest, 
courageous performance of whatever work he has given us 
to do. The most effectual defence of the Christian cause is 
not reasoning, which ingenious men may contrive to parry, 
but the irresistible argument of a holy life, before which 
infidelity stands abashed. 



512 THE FOUR gospels: 



THE FOUR GOSPELS : A REVIEW OF SUPERNATU- 
RAL RELIGION.* 

The anonymous work entitled Supernatural Religion 
is an elaborate attack upon the validity of the e^ddences and 
the authenticity of the documents of the Christian religion. 
The morality of the New Testament is alone possessed of 
value, in the judgment of the writer ; and this morality is 
not helped, but weakened, in its influence by the religious 
doctrine connected with it.f By " morality " he under- 
stands love to God and man, although he implies that the 
personality of God is an anthropomorphic conception.;]: He 
reserves, however, the full exposition of his theoretical sys- 
tem, which is to supersede revelation, for another work, to 
be issued hereafter. Nearly one-half of the first volume 
(pp. 1-214) is taken up with a discussion of the subject of 
miracles, in which their incredibility is advocated, and a 
polemical re^dew is presented of the arguments of Newman, 
Trench, and especially of Mozley. The remainder of the 
first volume and the whole of the second are devoted to a 
critical examination of the evidence for the genuineness of 
the synoptic Gospels and of the Gospel of John. In this, 
by far the most important, portion of the work, the early 
ecclesiastical writers are subjected to an extended scrutiny. 
The author is conversant with the modern critical discussions 
in Germany. He is very copious in his marginal references 
to books, even taking pains to point out volume and page of 

* From The Independent^ in November and December, 1874. The title 
of the work reviewed is : SupernafAiral Religion. An Inquiry into the 
Reality of Divine Revelation. In two vols. London : Longmans, Green 
& Co. 1874. 

tVol. ii., p. 483. :{: Vol. i., p. 7S. 



A EEVIEW OF SUPEENATUEAL EELIGION. 513 

the well-known manuals on the Introduction to the l^ew 
Testament, and of other books of a like character, on occa- 
sions where there is hardly need of so much particularity. 
The book is, for substance, a reproduction in English of the 
theories and arguments of the Tubingen school respecting 
early Christianity and the gospels. Baur, Hilgenfeld, Yolk- 
mar, Zeller, Schwegler, Scholten, and their coadjutors are 
the names with which his foot-notes are most frequently 
sprinkled. It is the Tubingen criticism anglicized. The 
impression which the book makes in England, if we may 
judge from the tone of the English press, indicates a want 
of familiarity en the part of the educated class in that 
country with the course of theological discussion on the con- 
tinent. Journals like the Pall Mall Gazette are quite daz- 
zled at the erudition, as well as skill, of the unknown com- 
batant. In some points this Anglican critic out-herods 
Herod. For example, in contradiction to most of the 
scholars of the German sceptical school, he stiU claims that 
Marcion's Gospel is the original of Luke's,* and will not 
admit — what even Hilgenfeld and Strauss concede — that the 
Clementine Homilies quote from the fourth gospel. Can- 
did and discerning readers of works like Block's Introduction 
to the New Testament^ l^or ton's Genuineness of the Gospels^ 
and Westcott's Canon of the Neio Testament — we purposely 
name books which are accessible to English readers — will de- 
tect without difficulty the fallacies which swarm in this last 
attack on the gospels. To sift the work in detail and to ex- 
pose the mass of sophistry which it contains would require 
a large space. It is practicable, however, to point out the 
weakness of some of its main positions. 

We begin with the first three Gospels. "We shall after- 
wards take up the Gospel of John. It cannot be denied 
(and this author does not deny) that in the latter half of 
the second century the number of Gospels acknowledged in 

*[ This opinion is retracted in the 7th edition of Supernatural Bdigion.] 

22* 



514 THE FOUR gospels: 

the cliurcli everywliere — from Antiocli and the farthest East 
to Carthage and the Atlantic shore of Spain — is limited to 
the fom- of our canon. Clement, and Irensens, and Tertnl- 
lian, the Italic version, and probably the Syriac version, are 
the chief witnesses. These Gospels the fathers of that time 
affirm to have been handed down from the apostolic age. 
This anonymons author fifty times asserts that in the first 
half of the second century numerous gospels were widely 
circulated in the church. This statement is utterly unproved 
and it is untrue. The Gospel of the Hebrews, in its different 
recensions, was an altered Matthew, and the Gospel of Mar- 
cion a mutilated Luke. The one was in use among the 
Ebionites and the other in the Marcionite sect. Leaving 
these out of the account, the reiterated statement about the 
wide circulation and acceptance of other gospels is without 
foundation. But, if the writer's assertion were true, it 
would puzzle him to give a satisfactory explanation of the fact 
that the four — these and no others — are found, in the last 
quarter of the second century, consentaneously adopted by 
the churches scattered over the Eoman Empire, and adopted 
without a lisp of dissent or contradiction among them. 

Yery few of the ecclesiastical writers of thejirst half of 
the second century are extant. The most important of those 
whose works remain is Justin Martyr. About the genuine- 
ness of his two apologies and of the dialogue with Trypho 
there is no question. It is natural that the author of Su- 
pernaticral Religion should exert himself to the utmost to 
show that Justin's quotations are not, as they have been 
generally deemed to be, derived from the gospels of the 
canon, but from lost works. About forty years ago, Cred- 
ner, a theologian of Giessen, published his critical works on 
the E'ew Testament, in which the quotations of Justin were 
collected and tabulated. The judgment of this scholar was 
not always equal to his learning. He held that the first 
three gospels were in the hands of Justin, and he believed 
in the Johannine authorship of the fourth ; but he attributed 



A REVIEW OF SUPEKNATUEAL RELIGION. 515 

exaggerated influence to the Jewish gospels — the " Gospel 
of the Hebrews," etc. — and maintained that Justin drew at 
least the main portion of his passages from them. The 
Tubingen doctors started with tlie facts and data of Credner, 
and, as one might expect, pushed his theory to the extreme 
of excluding altogether the canonical gospels from the 
knowledge of Justin. The author of Sujpernatural Religion 
treads closely in their footsteps. Justin ten times calls the 
source of his quotations the Memoirs hy the Apostles, and five 
times simply Memoirs ; in one case he speaks of them as 
composed by ^' the apostles and their companions," ^ and 
once he explains that they " are called Gospels." f In the 
passage where " the apostles and their companions " are 
mentioned as the authors of the Memoirs the connected 
quotation is found in Luke, a circumstance that would ac- 
count for the express reference to " companions" in connec- 
tion with " apostles." The reason why the gospels are 
called Memoirs, without a mention of the author's names, is 
plain. Justin was wi'iting for heathen readers, or for Jews, 
who knew nothing of the evangelists by name, and w^ould 
not understand the title " Gospels." In several places in the 
" Dialogue with Trypho," who was acquainted wdth Chris- 
tianity, Justin does use " the Gospel " in the singular as a 
designation for the Memoirs. Seeing that later fathers in 
the same century — as Irenseus and Tertullian — employ this 
very term as a name for the four gospels collectively, it is 
natural to suppose that Justin did the same. His Dialogue 
with Trypho was written about a.d. 160, when Irenseus must 
liave been about thirty years of age. The Memoirs, what- 
ever they were, were read along with the prophets, Justin 
tells us, in the Christian assemblies on the Lord's Day, in 
city and country. The author whom we are reviewing re- 
peatedly affirms that Justin did not consider the Memoirs 
inspired or authoritative, that he believed them solely on 

*i>M,c. 103. \A^ol.\.,m. 



516 THE FOUR gospels: 

account of their accordance with prophecy, and that he was 
a Jndaizer, hostile to Paul — statements contrary to the 
truth, but not of sufficient relevancy to require here a 
refutation. In the first place, this author expresses the re- 
markable opinion that Justin by his Memoirs designates a 
single gospel — one work. Then this one book must have 
had " the apostles and their companions " for its authors ! 
Against this odd supposition, stands not only the natural 
interpretation of Justin's language in all of his references to 
the Memoirs, but also his express declaration that they " are 
called gospels." But this last clause, without a particle of 
manuscript evidence, is thrown out of the text and pro- 
nounced spurious ! That the author is not absolutely alone 
in this emendation makes it none the less an arbitrary con- 
jecture. When Justin speaks of the Memoirs as written by 
"the apostles and their companions" there is no reason to 
doubt that he has in mind the works which Tertullian 
describes in just the same manner. "When he refers to a 
circumstance about Peter as recorded in his Memoirs it is 
right to conclude that the Gospel of Mark which Papias and 
the ancient church connected with Peter as having been 
wi'itten by his disciple, is the book referred to.^ Secondly, 
the author of Supernatural Religion tries to get over the 
difficulty arising from the liturgical use of the Memoirs, by 
pretending that many other works were read in like manner. 
A few homiletic writings — as the E^nstle of Clement, and 
the Shej)herd of Hermas — were not unfrequently read in 
the early churches. But, with the exception of the Gos- 
pel of the Hebrews in the Ebionitic communities, there is 
no proof that other gospels than the four had this public 
recognition. Justin must have been acquainted with the 
chm*ches of Italy and Asia. How did the unknown gospel, 
which corresponded so closely to the canonical narratives, and 

* In Dial.^ c, 106. In the same sentence, Justin refers to Boanerges, 
as the name given to John and James, a fact mentioned by Mark alone 

of the Evangelists. 



A KEVIEW OF SUPERNATURAL RELIGION. 517 

wliicli it is pretended that Justin quotes from, get crowded 
out of the services on Sunday and get supplanted by others, 
and all within the space of a few years, since Irenseus must 
have been a man grown, when Justin wrote his Dialogue ? 
Justin himself dwells on the multitude of Christians in his 
time, who were scattered over the whole world, among all 
nations, whether nomadic or civilized."^ How could the gos- 
pels which existed in multiplied copies, and which they read 
in their public worship, be suddenly dropped, and exchanged 
for others, and no notice be left of the fact of such a revolu- 
tion or of the process by which it was effected ? 

In the very great number of references to the gospel 
narrative in Justin there is a general and striking coinci- 
dence with our evangelists. We shall here speak of the 
first three gospels, reserving the consideration of John for 
a later page. We have in Justin no myths respecting 
Mary and the infancy of Jesus, such as fill the apocryphal 
narratives. Why attribute his references to any other 
source than to the gospels of the canon ? First, our author 
brings forward the fact that the quotations are not verbally 
accurate. But {a) this is no peculiarity of Justin. The 
other fathers, who are known to have received the four 
alone, quote from memory and exhibit the same sort of in- 
accuracy. One of the most striking instances of this inex- 
act method of quotation is in the case of Matt. xi. 27 (Luke x. 
22), on which our author builds much. But the same devia- 
tions from the canonical text are found in Clement of Alex- 
andria, Origen, and Irenseus ; so that his argument is good for 
nothing. To paraphrase a passage, instead of giving it ver- 
'batim ; to combine the language of two evangelists upon the 
same matter ; to misrecollect the phraseology of a passage 
and to quote it more than once in the same inexact form, 
are so natural, so explicable on knowQ principles of mental 
action, and so common, even at the present day, that phe- 



518 THE FOUR GOSPELS : 

nomena of this sort, occurring at a time when the gospels 
were comparatively new and were read only in manuscripts, 
should occasion no surprise. It is true that the author be- 
fore us stigmatizes this method of accounting for Justin's in- 
accurate quotations, as ^' elastic," " convenient," " arbitrary," 
etc. But such epithets will affect no one who reflects on 
the subject and who is acquainted with the ordinary practice 
of the authors of antiquity, {h) We find that Justin quotes 
other writers with quite as much freedom as to the verbal 
form. He quotes the Septuagint with similar departures 
from the text. He quotes from Plato, especially in one 
striking passage w^here we might look for a literal citation, 
with a deviation from the original as marked as that of most 
of his gospel quotations."'^ Did he read a different Plato, 
an apocryphal Timceus'f Is the supposition that he read 
the Tmiceus that we read, ^' elastic," " arbitrary," the sub- 
terfuge of " Apologists " ? Pie quotes from Isaiah, doubt- 
less by a mistake, a passage not to be found in the prophet.f 
Does this prove that he had another Isaiah or was unac- 
quainted with the canonical hooks of the Old Testament ? 
Has the canonical Isaiah supplanted an earlier Isaiah which 
Justin used ? Lastly (c), Justin differs from himseK. He 
brings forward in repeated instances passages which he 
gives in different places in a varying form. In the passage 
to which we have adverted (Matt. xi. 27) our author finds 
in Justin's use of the aorist for the present ("knew "for 
" laioweth ") proof of the use of a heretical gospel. But 
Justin himself cites the passage, giving the verb in the 
present.:]: This comparison of Justin with himself proves 
conclusively that he was in the habit of quoting from 
memory and frequently without taldng pains to cite the 
text verbatim. If the position of the author of Sujper- 
Qiatural Religion is to stand, he must show that Justin's 
quotations deviate from our gospels in such a way as to ac- 

* A^ol. ii., 10. \ Dial., c. 138. % Dial, c. 100. 



A REVIEW OF SUPEENATUKAL RELIGION. 519 

cord systematically with the Jewish gospel, to which he at- 
tributes them. This, secondly, he attempts to do. As- 
suming that the Clementine Homilies quote from such a 
gospel, he would make out a verbal correspondence be- 
tween certain of Justin's passages and those found in that 
work. In this effort he follows Credner, The attempt is 
made with reference only to a very few of the numerous 
references to the gospel narrative in the Homilies, and the 
result of the comparison is far from justifying the inference 
of the author. For example, both Justin and the Homilies 
ascribe to the Lord the precept, " Let your yea be yea, and 
your nay, nay." But the canonical epistle of James gives 
the precept in the same form, and so does Clement of Alex- 
andria, who regarded the four gospels as alone authoritative. 
The ecclesiastical writers may have taken the form of the 
precept from James — the form in which it came orally to 
this Apostle. The instances of verbal coincidence — so far 
as such exist between Justin's references and those of the 
Clementines — are quite inadequate to prove a common 
source distinct from the canonical gospels. When Justin's 
quotations are compared generally with those of the Homi- 
lies, it is found that, so far from tallying with them, they 
differ in phraseology as widely as do Justin's from the text 
of our evangelists. The third main argument in Supernat- 
ural Religion^ on the topic before us, is founded on the ref- 
erences in Justin to facts and sa^dngs not contained in our 
Gospels. These additions are frequently alleged to be nume- 
rous and important. This is not true. In the multitude 
of references to Christ's teaching, there are only two say- 
ings ascribed to him which are extra-canonical. One is the 
prediction that heresies and divisions would break out ; the 
other is — ^' In whatsoever things I apprehend you, in these 
will I judge you." The first of these (resembling the pas- 
sage in 1 Cor. xi. 18 seq.), is attributed to Jesus by Clement 
of Alexandria and Lactantius, The second is also in Clem- 
ent, as well as in later writers. Justin speaks of Jesus as 



620 THE FOUR gospels: 

having been born in a cave — a circumstance referred to also 
by Origen and in many of the later fathers, and unquestion- 
ably an early tradition. But it was in a. manger — Justin 
tells us in the same passage — that Christ was born ; the cave 
contained a manger. Justin says that when Jesus entered 
the water to be baptized a fire was kindled in the Jordan. 
The same thing is found in several apocryphal books. In 
the Gospel of the Hebrews the fire is said to have appeared 
when he came up from the water. Here we have probably 
an early tradition, which became incorporated in more than 
one writer. Justin represents the voice from Heaven at 
the baptism as saying : " Thou art my Son. This day I have 
begotten thee." We learn from Augustine that this read- 
ing of the passage was current in his day. It is found in 
the old Latin version. It occurs in the Cambridge manu- 
script D. It is met with in Clement of Alexandijia, and 
other later authors. Justin speaks of Jesus as a carpenter, 
making plows and yokes — a statement introduced into the 
apocryphal Gospel of the Infancy and the Gosj)el of Thomas. 
Justin says that the people considered his miracles a magic 
phantasy and called him a magician. This may have been 
a fi-ee paraphrase of the statements in Matthew ix. 34 ; 
xii. 24 ; Mark iii. 22 ; Luke xi. 15 ; but it is found in 
Origen, the Recognitions of Pseudo-Clement, and else- 
where. He also says that the ass on which he rode was tied 
to a vine — a circumstance which probably connected itself 
early in the tradition with the prophecy in Genesis xlix. 10, 
with which Justin associates it."^ This brief list comprises 
everything which can fairly be called a supplement to the 
contents of the four Gospels in the entire mass of Justin's 
references; and, as this writer says Justin's works ''teem 
with these quotations." t They are here brought together, 
be it observed, from all his works. In the places where 
they occur, they would hardly attract an ordinary reader's 
attention. It is not impossible that Justin may have been 

* Dial, c. 53. f Vol. i.,p. 341. 



A REVIEW OF SUPEENATUEAL EELIGION. 521 

acquainted with the Gospel of the Hebrews — the Ebionitic 
Matthew ; and that reminiscences of his reading of that 
book may have mingled themselves with his extracts from 
the canonical four. Certain sayings of Jesus and circum- 
stances in his life which are not recorded by the Evangel- 
ists formed a part of the early tradition. They found their 
way into books. Whether Justin drew these few things 
from such books or from an oral source — from traditional 
report — it is difficult to decide. But there is one point of 
capital importance : not one of these extra-canonical state- 
ments is referred hy him to the Memoirs. The author of 
Sujpernatural Religion labors hard to prove the contrary, 
but he labors in vain. In the account of the baptism of 
Jesus it is only what our gospels contain that is referred by 
Justin to the Memoirs. To infer that he means to attribute 
his whole narrative of this event to them is without warrant. 
If this inference were just, it would only authorize us to con- 
clude that Justin's memory in this instance, as in the case of va- 
rious references by him to the Old Testament, was imperfect. 

That Justin drew the bulk of his references to the gos- 
pels from the Matthew, Mark, and Luke of our canon, is 
one of the best-established results of impartial critical and 
historical research. That he made use of John's Gospel is, 
also, capable of satisfactory proof. 

If the notions of the author of Sujpernatural Religion as 
to the source of Justin's quotations were tenable we should 
have to conclude that there was a gospel preceding the four 
of the canon, which contained a great part of the contents of 
all of them ; that the four were written on the basis of it, each 
drawing off a portion of the matter ; that this comprehensive 
gospel was dropped by the churches after the middle of the 
second century, and the four taken up in the room of it.* 

* [The improbabilities (amounting- to absurdity) of this theory as to 
the contents of The Gospel to the Hebrews, and its relation to the canoni- 
cal g-ospels, are well set forth in The Lost Gospel and its Contents^ by the 
Rev. M. F. Sadler, M.A. (London, 1876).] 



522 THE FOTJE GOSPELS : 

As we approacli tlie close of the second century we find 
that the churches everywhere, without conciiiar action or 
the influence of prominent individuals, have settled in com- 
mon upon the fom^ gospels as possessed of exclusive author- 
ity. This very remarkable fact is fully attested, as we have 
remarked, by the testimony of the fathers, and by the early 
versions. The author of Stcpernatural Religion repeatedly 
alludes to the use of other gospels by Clement of Alexan- 
dria ; but Clement himself, refen-ing to an alleged conversa- 
tion of Salome and Jesus, says : " We have not this saying 
in the four gosjyels ivhich have heen handed doivn to us, but 
in that according to the Egyptians." ^ He distinguishes the 
f oiu* as authoritative. ^Yq must offer a brief comment here 
upon the way in which the Muratorian Canon is treated in 
the work which we are criticising. This interesting frag- 
ment, as is well kno^vn, begins with a broken sentence, which 
may be naturally interpreted as relating to Mark's Gospel. 
The MS. then proceeds to speak of the " third book of the 
Gospel according to Luke " ; then of the Gospel of John, 
which is called the f om^th ; and then of the Acts. That 
Matthew and Mark preceded this notice of Luke in the ms., 
no person can reasonably doubt. Yet this author is bold 
enough to say that there is no evidence of it " stronger than 
a mere conjecture." The ms. says of the Pastor of Her- 
r)ias : " Hermas, in truth, composed the Pastor very recently 
in our times in the City of Rome, the Bishop Pius, his broth- 
er, sitting in the chair of the Church of the City of Pome." 
The latest possible date of the episcopate of Pius is l-i2-157 ; 
yet our author falls back upon a subterfuge of Yolkmar, who 
suggested that the writer of the canon speaks of the date of 
Hermas comparatively, in relation to that of the apostolic 
writings — a suggestion having no support from the language 
of the document — and forthwith brings down its date "to a 
late period of the third century." He even observes, with 



A REVIEW OF SUPERNATUEAL RELIGION. 523 

some naivete^ tliat if it can be supposed tliat the phrase was 
used thirty or forty years after the time of Pius, " so much 
license is taken that there is absolutely no reason why a still 
greater interval may not be allowed." '' Yery recently," " in 
our times " — keep us, at least, within the limit of the second 
century. Be it observed that this same author, who resorts 
to such flimsy arguments in order to bring the Muratorian 
MS. down into the third century, nevertheless treats the fact 
that Matthew and Mark were referred to in it, as " a mere 
conjecture ! " 

This author discloses a partisan spirit in what he says of 
Marcion's Gospel, which, being an altered, mutilated Luke, 
proves the currency of the canonical third gospel in the first 
half of the second century. Eitschl and some others of the 
Tiibingen school, contrary to the declaration of the fathers 
— Irenseus, Tertullian, Epiphanius — and to the well-nigh uni- 
versal opinion, had defended the proposition that Marcion's 
Gospel was first and that Luke's grew out of it. This opin- 
ion was confuted by Yolkmar, of the same school, who was 
supported by Ililgenfeld and Zeller ; and these were joined 
by Baur and by Ritschl, who retracted their former opin- 
ions. The priority of our Luke in general was thus con- 
ceded by the sceptical school which had impugned it. The 
author of Supernatural Religion is adventurous enough to 
take up " the lost cause." He prepares the way by sweep- 
ing remarks upon the utterly uncritical habit of the fathers, 
and the worthlessness of their testimony. Especially does 
he seek to heap contempt upon Tertullian, the most formid- 
able witness in the case, who, though a vehement controver- 
sialist (like Martin Luther), had taken great pains to inform 
himself about Marcion. Almost the only thing of the na- 
ture of serious argument in connection with this indiscrim- 
inate and, therefore, unjust diatribe against the fathers, is 
the attempt to show that Marcion admitted into his Gospel 
various things inconsistent with his alleged design to exclude 
what gave sanction to the Old Testament and the Jewish 



624 THE FOUR GOSPELS I 

system. Whoever will carefully consider the omitted pas- 
sages — as given by De "Wette and Bleek — will see that they 
fully sustain the allegation of the church writers as to the 
intent of Marcion. That he did not use the pruning-knife 
with absolute consistency and thoroughness, that in some 
cases he relied upon strained and perverse interpretations, as 
a means of getting rid of obnoxious statements, does not 
militate against the truth of this allegation. In the case of 
one of Marcion's characteristic alterations, our author de- 
fends Marcion's reading, in the face of decisive evidence. 
The passage is Luke xvi. IT. Marcion rejected all of the 
apostles but Paul, and, hence, cast away the gospels w^ith 
which they were connected. But Irengeus and Tertullian 
both distinctly imply that he was acquainted with the other 
canonical gospels. Marcion expunged, also, from the Epis- 
tles of Paul passages opposed to his own type of doctrine. 
This is established, although in some cases his variations 
were doubtless due to diverse readings of the text. The 
Marcionites, after their master, introduced further altera- 
tions into the documents which they received. Besides the 
peculiarity of Marcion's changes, it is on other grounds irra- 
tional to assign the priority to his gospel. Did the church 
in the middle of the second century take a gospel from the 
hands of a heretical sect and amplify it ? This is one mar- 
velous hypothesis which has not wanted supporters. The 
absurdity of it the author before us appears to recognize. 
He broaches the theory that Marcion's Gospel was the orig- 
inal Luke, and had remained in use among the churches of 
Pontus after it had been supplanted elsewhere by our third 
gospel. He would have us believe that Marcion's Gospel 
had been altered and enlarged, and in 'this new form had 
been spread abroad ; while the first form, the germ of it, 
still remained among the orthodox Christians of Pontus, 
where Marcion was brought up. It is fatal to this extraor- 
dinary hypothesis that there is not a particle of evidence, 
from any quarter, that Marcion's Gospel was ever used by 



A REVIEW OF SUPERNATURAL RELIGION. 525 

any but Marcionites. There is no proof whatever that Mar- 
cion, his opponents, or his followers pretended that his gos- 
pel was in use among the orthodox any wliere, either before 
or after his time. Marcion's Gospel began with the third 
chapter of our Luke. The prologue of Luke — the first 
verses — bears every mark of being a part of the original 
work, and not a forged addition by some later hand. The 
Gospel has throughout the same uniform characteristics of 
style and language. It is by one and the same writer.* 

The author of Supernatural Religion is not less sopliisti- 
eal in his treatment of the testimony of Papias. He is very 
free in imputing prejudice and unfairness to Westcott, Tisch- 
endorf, and to '' Apologists " generally ; but he himself fur- 
nishes not a few instances of special pleading which are 
not worthy of a scholar. " It is clear," he says, " that, even 
if Papias knew any of our gospels, he attached little or no 
value to them." \ As if Papias took pains to give an ac- 
count of the origin of gospels and of the connection of apos- 
tles with them, but attached no value to these works ! Pa- 
pias says that Mark, in writing down Peter's accounts of 
Christ's deeds and words, did not observe a chronological 
order. On the ground of the statement, which, at best may 
have been a merely subjective judgment of Papias — natural, 
perhaps, in view of the abrupt beginning and abbreviated 
character of the second Gospel — it is concluded that Papias 
refers to some other book than oar Mark, l^either Irenseus, 
Eusebius, or any other of the ancient waiters, who had the 
work of Papias in their hands, dreamed of his referring to 
any other Mark than the canonical Gospel. "We are told 
again, of course, that these authors were uncritical, imbecile : 
yet they were critical enough to make inquiries on this very 
subject, and to examine the statements of Papias. These 

* [As stated above, the author of Supernatural Religion, in his last 
edition, retracts the opinion that Marcion's Gospel preceded the canonical 
Luke.] 

fVol. ii.,p. 445. 



526 THE FOUR GOSPELS : 

wholesale charges against the fathers are extremely unjust, 
and are only serviceable to help an advocate bolster up a 
weak cause. When it serves his turn, this same writer is 
ready enough to rely on them. Hilgenfeld maintained that 
our Mark has been manipulated by a devotee of the Petrine 
interest. The author before us thinks it not Petrine enough 
to suit the account of Papias. A candid student will find 
little weight in the arguments of either of these critics on 
this point. There is nothing in the gospel, and nothing 
omitted from it, which can lead to the conclusion that a dis- 
ciple of Peter was not its author. But if Supernatural Re- 
ligion is correct in holding that Papias referred here to the 
apocryphal book called The Preaching of Peter ^ it is an in- 
teresting question how this book became universally sup- 
planted and superseded by our second Gospel, without any 
notice^ too, of the fact, or any traces of a controversy. "We 
are not favored with any solution of this tough problem. 
" It is not necessary for us to account " for this disappear- 
ance of one book, and adoption of another in its room, says 
our author ; and then he pours out his customary assertions 
about the uncritical character of the fathers. This is sim- 
ply to throw dust in the eyes of his readers. There are cu- 
rious inconsistencies in this author's comments upon the ref- 
erence of Papias to Matthew. He takes the term Logia in 
the restricted sense, to denote " the discourses " of the Lord. 
Hence he infers that the first Gospel, in its present form, 
was not known to Papias — a quite illegitimate inference, 
since Papias, in referring to the translation which every one 
made as he could from the Aramaic original, speaks in the 
aorist tense. The implication is, that the necessity for trans- 
lating no longer existed. The main point of our author's 
argumentation is that, if there was not a Hebrew (Aramaic) 
original, we have no testimony to the fact of the existence 
of a Gospel by Matthew. Yarious writers — including even 
Guizot — have asserted that Calvin first published his Insti- 
tutes in French. The fact is that the first publication of 



A REVIEW OF SUPERNATDKAL RELIGION. 527 

that work was in Latin. Then, by parallel reasoning, as re- 
gards the testimony of all these writers, we have no proof at 
all that Calvin ever wrote or published the Institutes. But 
the author of Sajpernatural Religion appeals to the state- 
ment of Pantsenus, Irenseus, Eusebius, and the fathers gen- 
erally, in favor of a Hebrew original of Matthew. E^ow all 
of these fathers speak of the entire Gospel ; so that, by par- 
ity of reasoning, again, if their testimony is good for any- 
thing, it was the whole Gospel which Papias had. The 
chronological position of this "ancient man" renders the 
opposite opinion in the highest degree improbable. The 
question whether the first Gospel is a translation or not, is 
decided differently by equally competent critics. Bleek 
plausibly explains how Papias might have been misled on 
this point. His testimony in general would not be invali- 
dated by such an error. The author of Supernatural Re- 
ligion contends with much positiveness that if the first Gos- 
pel is a translation of a lost original, it is destitute of author- 
ity. But here, as so often elsewhere, he falls into fallacious, 
extravagant assertions. 

We have not the space even to sum up the evidence for 
the antiquity of the first three Gospels. The unanimous, 
undisputed acceptance of them by the churches of the last 
half of the second century, their coincidence with known 
fact in a thousand archseological particulars, their eschato- 
logical passages (Matt, xxiv., xxv., etc.), their sobriety of 
tone, in which they are in marked contrast with apocryphal 
Gospels, are among the principal proofs of their early com- 
position. Referring to a strange expression about the mil- 
lenium, attributed, on the ground of tradition, by Papias to 
Jesus, the work before us says that, if " it be not of a very 
elevated character, it is quite in the spirit of that age." 
This author would not deny that it is utterly foreign to the 
spirit of the canonical Gospels. It illustrates what sort of 
stuff they would have contained had they been composed at 
the period where he would place them. We may say one 



528 THE FOUR GOSPELS : 

word here upon the genuineness of the Gospel of Luke. 
The book of Acts refers back to the third GospeL Both 
profess to be by the same author. Thej are homogeneous 
in style. Both books were written throughout by the same 
pen. Tradition from the begimiing ascribed them to Luke. 
At the part of the narrative in the Acts where Paul leaves 
Troas (xvi. 11) the writer first uses the first person plural — 
" we.'^ This disappears after Paul leaves Philippi and un- 
til his return. Then the same form of expression reappears 
(xxi. 1-18 ; xxvii. 1 ; xxviii. 17). It is implied, of course, 
that the writer became a companion of Paul. Since the 
Jicts is not a conglomerate, is not a piece of patchwork, but 
is composed and wrought by a single author, it follows that, 
if this author was not an actual participant in the events at 
the points referred to, we must attribute to him a knavish 
device — a trick, too, of a sort unexampled in apocryphal lit- 
erature. Suppose these two books to have been written 
by Luke, to whom the imanimous tradition of the ancient 
churches ascribed them, and the peculiarities to which we 
have adverted, as well as their whole structure and complex- 
ion, meet with a perfectly natural explanation. But, if the 
genuineness of Luke is established, doubt respecting the an- 
tiquity of Matthew and Mark must disappear. 

The patristic evidence for the Gospels is, to use an old 
simile, like a bundle of fagots. There are single sticks in 
the bundle which it is almost impossible to break. Of 
many of these rods, however, it is true that each can be 
separately broken ; yet, when combined, they are irrefraga- 
ble. There are leading proofs, and there are corroborative 
proofs. The art of the controversialist, which the author of 
/Stipernattiral Religion finely exemplifies, is to isolate each 
of the numerous items of evidence and then attack it by itself. 
Thus, in the case of the Fourth Gospel, there are passages 
in Ignatius, in the Epistle to Diognetus, and in other docu- 
ments, which, taken in connection with the general stream of 



A REVIEW OF SUPERNATURAL RELIGION. 529 

evidence, go to prove the Johannine authorship ; though, 
considered bj themselves, they are not conclusive. The 
writer's arguments against the genuineness of the Fourth 
Gospel are few of them new, and they have been more than 
once confuted. His attempt to show that Papias was not 
acquainted with the Fourth Gospel, on account of the silence 
of Eusebius on this point, is utterly futile, as any one can 
see who will observe the limit which Eusebius proposes to ob- 
serve, and actually did observe, in his references to quotations 
made by the earlier writers from l^ew Testament books. 
References to " acknowledged," or imdisputed books, among 
which he reckons John's Gospel, he did not profess to notice.* 
The efforts to show that Justin Martyr was not acquainted 
with this gospel is one of the points that merit attention. 
This author maintains that Justin drew his conceptions of the 
Logos mainly from Philo. But Justin, although he may have 
been acquainted with Philo's writings, does not mention him, 
even in the dialogue with the Jew, where the authority of 
the Alexandrian might have helped him in his argument. 
But there is this grand peculiarity of Justin and the Chris- 
tian writers, that they dwell upon the incarnation. It is 
the incarnate Logos in whom they are chiefly interested. 
But the incarnation of the Logos is something utterly for- 
eign to Alexandrian Judaism. The Logos is scarcely per- 
sonal in Philo ; of the incarnation of the Logos in a man, 
the life and soul of the doctrine alike in John and in Justin, 
the Alexandrian speculatist knows nothing. The substance 
of the Christian conception of Christ was the direct effect of 
the impression which he made upon the apostles and of his 
testimony respecting himself. The Logos terminology was 
no part of his own teaching; it T\^as the vehicle through 
which John expressed his idea of Christ, thereby rectifying 
all other notions of " the Word." Again, it is in the highest 
degree improbable that Justin should say as much as he 



* Eusebius, K E.,m..d. 
23 



530 THE FOUR gospels: 

does of Christ as the "Word unless he depended for this doc- 
trine on some authoritative gospel. A single allusion of 
doubtful meaning to Christ as the Word, in the Apocalypse, 
is utterly insufficient to account for the phenomena which 
Justin's writings present. When we find him, then, in 
connection with remarks on the Logos, distinctly referring 
to the Memoirs^^ ^ who can honestly doubt that it is John's 
Gospel which is the source of his doctrine ? The terms in 
which he describes the incarnation differ in form, rather 
than substance, from those of John ; and our author's argu- 
ment in this matter is a very frail one. When we come to sin- 
gle passages, that on regeneration baffles every attempt to con- 
nect it with any other source than the Fourth Gospel. f Both 
of the verbal deviations in Justin from the text of the Gos- 
pel are found in the same passage as quoted by Irenseus and by 
Eusebius, and both of them are easily explained. The substi- 
tution of " Kingdom of Heaven " for " Kingdom of God " is 
an inaccm-acy of frequent occurrence in citing this passage. 
In this way, as Prof. Abbot has pointed out, Jeremy Taylor 
quotes the passage.:]: The differences in the passage as quoted 
in the Clementine Homilies and by Justin are as marked 
as are the points of resemblance. Moreover, Hilgenf eld and 
Yolkmar concede that the author of the Clementines quotes 
from John. The endeavor of Sujpernatural Religion to 
show the contrary — even in reference to the story of the 
man born blind § — is a desperate attempt to disprove what 
is patent to every unbiased scholar. There is no known 
source to which the account of this miracle can be referred, 
except the Fourth Gospel. When the concluding portion of 
the Homilies was issued by Dressel, containing unmistakable 
references to John's Gospel, the whole enterprise of tracing 
Justin's quotation on the new birth to a lost gospel suffered 



*Z)iW., c. 105. \A'pol\.,^\. 

X See Am. ed. of Smith's Bible Dict.^ Art. John^ Gospel of . 
%Hom. xix.,22. 



A REVIEW OF SUPERNATUEAL RELIGION. 531 

shipwreck. In his desire to weaken the force of the proof 
derived from the Clementine Homilies, the author would 
make the date of the work as late as possible. But the 
later he makes it, the more improbable is his hypothesis 
that these passages, which are in the characteristic style of 
John, are quotations from some other book. 

We must pass over the writer's effort to show that Yalen- 
tinus, Marcion, and other teachers, heretical and orthodox, 
were not acquainted with the Fourth Gospel. He is obliged, 
in respect to Marcion and Valentine, for example, to contra- 
dict, by an arbitrary dictum, the explicit assertions of the 
ecclesiastical writers who were in a position to know the 
truth. All the evidence, external and internal, goes to show 
that the Fourth Gospel preceded the Yalentinian heresy. 
If it be supposed, as this writer would have us think, that 
the Fourth Gospel was used not by Y alentinus and Basilides 
themselves, but by their disciples and followers — by '' the 
school" of Yalentinus and by "the school" of Basilides — 
what is the result ? Why, we are driven to the conclusion 
that in the very heat and ferment of the great Gnostic con- 
troversy, this new Gospel appeared, was accepted by both 
antagonistic parties as an authority, was referred to by each 
and interpreted by each in his own manner — all uniting in 
ascribing it to John ! Is any marvel that is narrated in the 
Gospel itself greater than such a fact would be ? A new 
Gospel, distinguished from the gospels already in use by 
striking peculiarities, pronouncing upon doctrinal points of 
the highest interest and moment to the two contending par- 
ties, is composed by some unknown writer, but is accepted 
at once, without hesitation, and without suspicion, by both ! 

We wish especially to call the attention of our readers to 
this writer's disposition of the testimony of Irenseus. This 
testimony is of so convincing a character that the only pos- 
sible mode of turning the edge of it is by an assault upon 
the intelligence of the witness. Accordingly, Irenseus is 
pronounced so wholly uncritical as to be absolutely unworthy 



532 THE rOUE GOSPELS : 

of confidence. That this father sometimes errs we admit. 
An example, and the most striking example, is his idea 
respecting the long ministry of Jesus, which he accepted 
from others, of course without a critical attention to the 
data afforded by the Gospels. He is sometimes fanciful in 
his reasoning, as are Augustine and most of the patristic 
writers. ^Nevertheless, he was a man of more than ordinary 
talents, practical, sober in his judgments, and conscientious. 
That he was careless as to accepting spurious documents is 
a false accusation. It is one of his own charges against the 
Gnostics that they alter the gospels, and frame new gospels 
for themselves. In short, he is an unexceptionable witness 
on the question before us. I^ow, Irenseus, in his youth, knew 
Polycarp, a pupil of John. He remembered how Polycarp 
discoursed of the Apostle John. He had also known other 
presbyters in Asia Minor who had been acquainted with the 
same apostle. Irengeus gives the most decisive testimony to 
the genuineness of the Fourth Gospel. So established is he 
in his faith in the four as the only authentic gospels that he 
appeals, in a fanciful way, to cosmical and other analogies 
to show that there oniist be four and only four. Strange to 
say, this conceit is referred to by sceptical writers, including 
the author before us, to discredit Irenceus's testimony. If 
Irenseus had been first led to believe in the four by the fact 
of there being four winds, and four quarters of the globe, 
there might be some force in the objection. But everybody 
who reads him knows that the ground of his faith in the 
Four Gospels is the testimony of the churches and of " the 
elders." To this he explicitly refers his readers ; and these 
fanciful analogies indicate not at all the source, but only the 
strength and settled character of his reliance upon the Four 
Gospels of the Canon as the sole authentic sources of knowl- 
edge respecting Jesus. The chronological position of Ire- 
ngeus, whose active life covered the last forty years of the 
second century, his intimate acquaintance with the churches 
in the East, as well as in the West, and his separation by 



A REVIEW OF SUPEENATTJEAL EELIGION. 533 

only a single link fi-om the Apostle John himself, give to his 
testimony an irresistible weight. 

There are several references in the writings of Irenseus to 
his acquaintance with Polycarp. From the most copious of 
these, his letter to Florinus, who had joined the Yalentini- 
ans, we copy this extract : 

*' Those opinions, Florinus, that I may speak in mild terms, are not 
of sound doctrine ; those opinions are not in agreement with the church, 
and involve those who adopt them in the deepest impiety ; those opinions 
not even the heretics outside of the church have ever ventured to broach ; 
those opinions the elders who were before us, who were the pupils of the 
apostles, did not deliver to you. For, while I was still a boy, I saw you 
in Lower Asia, with Polycarp, when you were in a brilliant position in 
the royal palace and strove to approve yourself to him. For I recall bet- 
ter what occurred at that time than I do recent events, since what we 
learned in childhood being united to the soul as it grows up, becomes in- 
corporated with it, so that I can even describe the place in which the 
blessed Polycarp used to sit and discourse, his goings out, too, and com- 
ings in, the manner of his life and the form of his body, and his discourses 
which he used to deliver to the people, and how he spoke of his fainiliar 
intercourse with John and with the rest of those who had heard the Lord, 
and how he would call to mind their words. And whatever things he had 
heard from them respecting the Lord, both as to his miracles and his 
teaching, just as Polycarp had received it from the eye-witnesses of the 
Word of Life, he recounted it agreeably to the Scriptures. These things, 
through the mercy of God which was upon me, I diligently heard and 
treasured them up, not on paper, but in my heart, and I am continually, 
by the grace of God, revolving these things in my mind ; and I can bear 
witness belore God that, if that blessed and apostolic elder had ever heard 
any such thing, he would have cried out and stopped his ears, saying, as 
he was wont to say : ' Good God ! unto what times hast thou reserved 
me that I should endure these things ? ' And he would have fled from 
the very place where, whether sitting or standing, he had heard such 
words."* 

This extract will enable the reader to judge of the tone 
and spirit of Irenseus, and to decide whether it is probable 
that a gospel having all the pecuKarities of the fourth, and 
differing, as that does, from the synoptics, could have been 

* Irenasus (ed. Stieren) i. , 822 seq. 



534 THE rOUB GOSPELS : 

invented, and silently palmed off on the cliurclies throughout 
the Roman empire, dming the period when Poly carp was 
in active life and either shortly before or shortly after the 
personal intercourse of Irenseus with him. The truth is, 
that the recent adversaries of the genuineness of this gospel 
have done no sort of justice to the external evidence in its 
favor. 

The examination of the internal evidence respecting the 
authorship of the Fourth Gospel, in the book before us, pre- 
sents few points that are fresh. We must content ourselves 
with noticing one of these. Says this writer : ^ " The author 
[of the Fourth Gospel] shows in a marked way that he is 
not a Jew, by making Caiaphas and the chief priests and 
Pharisees speak of the Jewish nation, and the people not 
as o Xa6<i, like the Synoptics and other New Testament writ- 
ings ; but as to i^vo^, the term always employed by the Jews 
to designate the Gentiles." Now John nses the word etimos 
in only two passages — in xi. 48-52 and in xviii. 35. In the 
last case it is nttered by Pilate ; " Thine own nation and 
the chief priests," etc. In Pilate's mouth, surely, this word 
might naturally be expected. In the other passage (John 
xi. 50) Caiaphas nses both terms — that one man should die 
for the people (laos) , and not that the whole nation (ethnos) 
should perish." The latter term denotes the Jewish people 
more in a political relation ; the former, in a theocratic char- 
acter. In any event, it would be natural for John to use the 
term ethnos, writing, as he was, for Gentiles, at a distance 
from Judea. But in Luke's Gospel it is twice used by Jews 
of themselves — cc. vii. 5, xxiii. 2 ; and in the Acts in cc, 
xxiv. 17, xxvi. 4, xxvii. 19 ; also in Pom. x. 19. The 
statement of Supernatural Religion^ which we have quoted 
here, is far from being a solitary example of inexact asser- 
tion and weak reasoning to be met with in this portion of 
the book. 

* Vol. ii., 410. 



A REVIEW OF SUPERNATURAL RELIGION. 535 

This author brings forward no definite theory of his own 
in relation to the motives and design of tlie writer — whoever 
he was — of the Fourth Gospeh Here is a history of Jesus 
written from beginning to end by one man who earnestly 
believes that Jesus is the Messiah, and written in order that 
others might partake of his faith. According to the Tubin- 
gen doctors, he composed a fictitious biography of the Mas- 
ter, whom he loved and adored. Why did he do this ? In 
answer to this question we are told that all his interest was 
in the metaphysical, pre-existent Logos ; that the history of 
Jesus had for him personally no importance. It is the manu- 
factured investiture of an idea. Except on this remarkable 
hypothesis, the Tubingen theory about the Fourth Gospel is 
not even intelligible, much less plausible. If it be true, 
then, that the faith of the author of the Gospel was " a his- 
torical faith " — that is to say, if his faith centered in the in- 
carnate Jesus — living, teaching, w^orking miracles, dying and 
rising from the dead — the whole foundation of the skeptical 
cause falls away. But who that reads the Fourth Gospel 
can doubt for a moment that the religious life of the author 
drew its origin and its daily breath from the historical mani- 
festation of Christ % The opposite view can be maintained 
only by the most arbitrary and artificial exegesis. This fatal 
weakness of the negative theo-ry has been often pointed out. 
Quite lately this has been done, w^ith signal clearness, by 
Beyschlag."^ This article demolishes the position of Baur, 
by showing that the author of the Fourth Gospel was no such 
transcendental dreamer as the negative school is obliged to 
assume him to be. He believed in the divine character and 
mission of Jesus, and in the fourth gospel he sets forth the 
historical facts on which his belief was founded. 

Before the author of Supernattiral Religion makes his 
literary onset upon Revelation, he undertakes to prove the 

* In the Studien u. Kritiken. Oct. , 1874. 



536 THE FOUE GOSPELS I 

inherent incredibility of all miracles, and in particular of 
those which the Gospels describe. His principal points 
may be conveniently reviewed under five heads : 

I. lie contends that a supernatural occurrence is incapa- 
ble of being proved. He goes so far as to say of the sup- 
posed case of Paley, that the testimony of twelve observing, 
sober, disinterested witnesses, of tried veracity, to an event 
requiring supernatural agency ought to be disbelieved. He 
reviews and undertakes to expound the reasoning of Hume. 
Mr. J. S. Mill, among others, has clearly shown that Hume's 
argument has no w^eight in disproving a miracle, provided 
there be a Supreme Being who is able and willing to bring 
such an event to pass. In other words, the real battle with 
mibelief is on the principles of natural theology. Is there a 
God and is Revelation antecedently probable? If so, 
Hume's argument is stripped of its force ; it has no perti- 
nency. Mill also points out the obvious fact that the mira- 
cle is no violation of the axiom that the same causes pro- 
duce the same effects, since the intervention of a new cause 
is presupposed. To these considerations, so lucidly set forth 
by one of the chiefs of the empirical school, the book before 
us offers no adequate reply. All that the author says about 
" a complete induction " as ruling out miracles, is fully an- 
swered in the remarks of Mill to which we have just re- 
ferred. Whether miracles have occurred is a question of 
evidence. To elevate practically the presumption adverse to 
their occurrence, derived from the observed uniformity of 
Nature, to a level with mathematical axioms, is an extrava- 
gance which hardly merits a serious refutation. 

But these truths of natural religion — such as the being of 
a personal God — are, says the author, " a mere assumption." 
As far as the argument for miracles is concerned, that is 
granted by the " Apologists," for whom this author is so 
fond of expressing his contempt. You cannot prove the 
fact of a miracle to a dogmatic atheist. The Gospels inform 
us that Christ did not expect persons of this class to assent 



A REVIEW OF SUPEKNATUEAL RELIGION. 537 

to liis affirmations respecting himself. What " Apologists " 
claim is that the existence and character of God and the 
need of a revelation are assumed on good and sufficient 
grounds. 

II. This author maintains that supernatural events, on the 
supposition that they should occur, may he referable to evil 
beings, as well as to God ; and that, hence, they have no 
evidential value. Let it be granted that, as far as mere 
power is concerned, superhuman evil beings are capable of 
producing events which sm-pass the power of men and of 
natural causes. This objection Christ met by saying that 
" a house divided against itself cannot stand." Beelzebub 
does not work against his own cause. He does not do deeds 
of benevolence which are adapted to win men to the love 
and worship of God and to the practice of righteousness. 
We go behind the supernatural occurrence, and determine 
in particular its origin by moral considerations. Why is not 
this criterion adequate ? 

III. Our author strives again to destroy the evidential 
value of miracles by the consideration that their credibility 
as divine works is contingent on the character of the doc- 
trine which they profess to verify. The fact we admit ; the 
inference we deny. The doctrine proves the miracle and 
the miracle proves the doctrine. That is, they lend to each 
other a mutual corroboration. If the doctrine were immoral 
or otherwise unworthy, it would discredit the miracle. If, 
on the contrary, the doctrine seems noble and beneficent 
and worthy to have God for its source, this lends probability 
to the miracle, which, in turn, affixes a seal of verity and 
divinity to the doctrine which accompanies it. The purity 
and elevation of the doctrine are not only a prerequisite ; 
they also give to the miracle a measure of positive C]'edibil- 
ity. The author of the work before us argues that, since 
the contents of Eevelation are above reason, they cannot be 
judged to be credible beforehand ; and that the presumption 
against the recurrence of the miracles adduced in support of 

23* 



638 THE FOUE gospels: 

them cannot, therefore, be set aside. The supernatural he 
would o'ladlv convert into the anti-natural. He takes as the 
SYnonym of " doctrine " theological propositions upon the 
Trinity, the Incarnation, etc. As if the whole teaching of 
Jesus upon man — his soul, his duties, his relations to God, 
his sin — and upon the principles of God's government, and 
as if the personal characteristics of Jesus himself — his wis- 
dom, his self-sacrifice, his stainless purity and rectitude — 
were not elements in that internal evidence which renders 
miracles antecedently credible, as the natural and expected 
accompaniments of this unrivalled moral and spiritual excel- 
lence. This author first reduces Christianity and Christ to 
a few metaphysical conceptions, which, Iiowever well war- 
ranted, are far from being a fair or complete statement of 
the Gospel ; and then he proceeds to infer that they are not 
sufficiently clear and credible in themselves to lend an ante- 
rior probability to the assertion that miracles attend the pro- 
mulgation of them. He cannot be ignorant that intelligent 
'' Apologists "' have always laid stress on the perfection of 
the Gospel as a means of deliverance from sin, and as a dis- 
closure of the character of God ; on the unparalleled greatness 
and excellence of Jesus and the peculiarity of his aims. The 
true relation of the internal to the external argument can be 
made plain. Let us suppose ourselves to have been among 
the hearers and attendants of Jesus. We first listen to his 
teaching. We behold an instance of healing performed by 
him. It seems altogether miraculous. But we may, per- 
haps, question the accm^acy of our observation ; or, admitting 
the phenomenon, we may doubt as to the agency by which 
it is made to occur — whether it be, indeed, the act of God, 
or an effect wi'ought by some inferior, possibly evil, instru- 
mentality. But the more we see of Jesus the more irresisti- 
ble becomes the impression of His moral and spiritual integ- 
rity and elevation. He speaks as never man spake. Wit- 
nessing, further, His wonderful works, we no longer doubt 
either their reality or the means by which they are wrought. 



A REVIEW OF SUPERNATURAL RELIGION. 539 

Coming thus to believe in the works, thej cast back a new 
character of impressiveness upon his teaching, the divine 
source of which is now demonstrated by these exhibitions of 
power and love. We were not personally witnesses of the 
miraculous works, or hearers of the teaching of Christ ; but, 
by means of the testimony of the apostles, we can place our- 
selves back among those who were, and can see with their 
eyes and hear with their ears, and can partake of the im- 
pression which the whole manifestation of Jesus made upon 
their minds. It does not follow from the circumstance that 
Christianity is revealed and presents a mysterious side, that 
it has no points of contact with man's intelligence and moral 
nature. Rather is it the " bread of life." It corresponds 
to an inward hunger. It meets profound and more or less 
conscious necessities of the soul. It is medicine to the sick. 
In a word, it is redemption. Our author's argument de- 
pends for its plausibility on an extreme and irrational super- 
naturalism, which ignores the affinity of Christianity to hu- 
man nature, and the intrinsic rationality of the Gospel, not- 
withstanding the mysterious aspects and partially insoluble 
problems which a divine revelation might be expected to 
offer. 

lY. A prominent topic in Supernatural Religion is the 
credulity of the Jews at the time of the appearance of 
Christ. The book speaks of the '' dense ignorance and su- 
perstition " of the Jews at that date. The idea is that, in 
such an atmosphere, a belief in all sorts of miracles might 
easily arise and spread. When we look for the proofs of 
this sweeping statement respecting the countrymen and con- 
temporaries of Josephus, we are furnished with an assem- 
blage of notions drawn partly from the book of Enoch and 
other apocryphal writings, but mainly from the Talmud, 
which is assumed to reflect the prevalent ideas of the Jews 
at the beginning of the Christian Era. Without debating 
this last point, we observe that it is Jewish notions about 
angels and demons on which our author almost exclusively 



640 THE FOUR GOSPELS : 

dwells. But he breaks tlie force of his own argument by 
insistmg himself on the long continuance of what he regards 
as superstitious beliefs on this subject. Demoniacal agency, 
sorcery, and witchcraft, he tells us, have been almost uni- 
versally believed in, down to a recent date. The times of 
King James I. seem, in his judgment, to have shared in the 
credulity of the times of lierod. When he -leaves this par- 
ticular topic of demoniac agency, and looks about for proofs 
of the excessive credulity which he attributes to the Jews in 
the time of Christ, he is obliged to cite such examples as the 
familiar passage in Josephus on the portents observed in 
connection with the downfall of the Temple. Of the insuf- 
ficiency of such proofs to establish his main thesis no well- 
informed student of history needs to be assured. Such por- 
tents, in times of high-wrought public excitement, even in 
modern times, have been often imagined to occur. There 
are certain facts which prove conclusively the erroneous and 
misleading conception of the state of the Jewish mind which 
this author seems to entertain. The geographical position of 
the Jews ; their intercourse with the Greek world, as indi- 
cated in the circumstance that they were bilingual ; the fixed 
legal character of their theolog}^ and worship ; the existence 
of the party of Sadducees, a party marked by a tone of skep- 
ticism ; the fact that no miracles are ascribed to John the 
Baptist and none to Jesus before his public life began ; the 
numerous expressions in the gospels wdiich signify the amaze- 
ment which the miracles of Christ excited — these are among 
the circumstances which disprove the position of the author 
of this work. How could events of a class which everybody 
easily credited, and believed to be common, excite astonish- 
ment and fear, and be spoken of as events the like of 
which had never been heard of ? 

Y. We are told by the author of Sujpernatural Religion^ 
that if we believe the gospel miracles we must likewise ac- 
cept the later ecclesiastical miracles ; that both classes rest 
upon equal evidence; that there has been a continuous 



A REVIEW OF SUPEENATUKAL RELIGION. 541 

stream of miraculous pretension down to the present time ; 
and tliat to draw a line at any given point, after which we 
withhold our credence, is an arbitrary proceeding. 

The view which an enlightened Protestant takes of mira- 
cles is this : that they were requisite elements in tliat crea- 
tive, providential epoch when Christ and Christianity were 
introduced and entered into the historic life of humanity. 
At the same time, we are not obliged to affirm that mira- 
cles, at a given instant, abruptly and altogether ceased. In- 
stances of manifest supernatural power exerted, in answer 
to prayer, in the healing of physical disorders, may have 
occurred after the death of the apostles, and even in later 
ages. Such events would not prove the infallibility of those 
through whose instrumentality they were wrought ; nor 
would they invalidate the force of the gospel miracles as 
attestations of authoritative teaching. In the case of the 
latter, they were avowedly presented as credentials of a di- 
vine commission to teach. This was one of their direct 
and declared functions. But of the alleged post-apostolic 
miracles in the patristic age we remark, first, that they most 
frequently lack the proofs that would be requisite to estab- 
lish even extraordinary natural events. For example, the 
author of this work appeals to the stories told of Gregory 
Thaumaturgus by his biographer, Gregory of Kyssa, and by 
St. Basil. But both of these lived a century after the per- 
son to whom these narratives relate. As to St. Basil, our 
author can hardly be serious in recommending his testi- 
mony on the ground that his " grandmother, St. Macrina, 
was brought up at Keo-Csesarea by the immediate follow- 
ers of the saint." In many other cases the evidence, when 
it is sifted, turns out to be not more satisfactory. We re- 
mark, secondly, that the alleged post-apostolic miracles are 
conceded to be in contrast with those of the Gospels in re- 
spect to " dignity and beauty." This author tries to account 
for the fact by saying that the latter were associated with 
" our sublimest teacher." But the explanation is not very 



542 THE FOUR GOSPELS : 

clear, and tlie striking fact remains that the miracles of the 
apocryphal gospels, which are connected with Christ, have 
a grotesque and offensive character, in marked contrast with 
the narratives of the evangelists. These last narratives 
comport with the whole tone of the teaching ascribed to 
Christ ; they harmonize with it in their spirit, they fit into 
it also, and are presupposed by it in ways which no counter- 
feiter would be expert enough to contrive. We remark, 
thu'dly, that the post-apostolic and especially the mediaeval 
legends of miracles are explicable from the effect of Chris- 
tianity itself, with its authentic miracles, upon the imagina- 
tion and feelings of men of undisciplined minds, who were 
deeply impressed and kindled into a flame of emotional life 
by the Gospel. The gospel miracles, on the other hand, 
were not v^r ought in behalf of an accepted faith ; they crea- 
ted a new faith. It is not true, as the author says, that no 
individuals in the mediaeval age ascribed to themselves mir- 
aculous powers. For example, Augustin, the missionary to 
the Anglo-Saxons, and St. Bernard supposed themselves to 
perform miraculous works of healing. But, generally speak- 
ing, it is true that it was not the missionaries and preachers 
themselves, but others about them or after them, who at- 
tributed to them these marvels. 

Xow the Old Testament religion stood in no such rela- 
tion to Jesus and his contemporaries as did the Gospel to 
the mediaeval peoples, and in a less degree to the Christians 
of the third and fourth centuries. ^N'eander, in his Life of 
Christ, has a brief but profound and important passage on 
this distinction. Christ and the apostles introduced a move- 
ment which is aboriginal and creative, not^vitllstanding its 
organic relation to the Old Testament religion. It is pretty 
generally felt that Strauss's theory was a plausible, but su- 
perficial, hypothesis. Judaism was langidshing and dying. 
The age of miracles was in the far-off past. Men were 
fully sensible of the contrast between that distant period, 
the era of Moses and of the prophets, and the stagnant and 



A REVIEW OF SUPERNATURAL RELIGION. 543 

petrified period in which they themselves were living. There 
were no niiracle-w^orkers, unless exorcists are to be counted as 
such. Moreover, it is inconceivable that Jesus could have 
believed himself to be the Messiah, or in that character 
could have attached his followers to his person, had he not 
wrought miracles. 

The main question is wdiether the Gospels give a substan- 
tially correct representation of the life of Jesus — of what 
he said and what he did. If the writer of Supernatural 
Religion had succeeded in his literary attack — we hold that 
he has added another to the long list of failures — but had 
he succeeded, he Avould have simply shown that these par- 
ticular books, in their present form, represent merely the 
belief of the church in the second century. But how the 
church arose, what Christianity was — that tremendous move- 
ment which wxnt forth with a silent, conquering power, in 
the face of obloquy, torture, death, on its mission to subdue 
the world — of these questions we are furnished with no so- 
lution. It is as certain as any historical fact can be — the 
Epistles of Paul, by themselves, establish it — that the apos- 
tles, the immediate followers and chosen companions of 
Jesus, testified to the miracles, including the crowning mira- 
cle of his resurrection. 

The capital defect of this book, and of many other books 
of the same kind, is that they utterly lack a deep, broad, 
comprehensive understanding of Christianity, and a phi- 
losophical appreciation of its historical relation to the times 
previous and to the times subsequent to its appearance in 
the world. If here is not a new spiritual creation, if Christ 
is not " the second Adam," a new head of humanity, the 
Kedeemer, all this discussion about miracles might as well 
be dropped. Writers, who start with the fixed idea, whether 
consciously or unconsciously cherished, that the Christian 
religion is an example of the thousand and one impostures 
which have arisen and passed away in each generation ; 
writers who are thus ignorant of Christianity as a system 



544 THE FOUE GOSPELS. 

of moral and religious tnith., and as a vast, transforming 
movement in the course of human history, are shut up by 
tlieir own narrow perceptions to a false conclusion. One 
who mistakes a pyi-amid upon the Nile for a cob-house will 
hardly arrive at a correct theory respecting its origin. 



THE END. 



INDEX 



Abelard, characterized, 228. 

Agency, human, in conversion and 
sanctification, 349 seq. 

Albornoz, Cardinal, his service to the 
popes, 81. 

Alexander VI., Pope, his character, 84, 

Allen, Rev. Dr. H., on Rev. T. Bin- 
ney's views of future punishment, 
434. 

Alva, the Duke of, 14. 

Amboise, the conspiracy of, 10. 

Ambrose, on the invocation of angels, 
51. 

Anjou, Duke of (Henry III.), his pro- 
jecbed marriage with Elizabeth, 14; 
bis account of the plot of St. Bar- 
tholomew, 20. 

Annihilation of the wicked, doctrine of 
the, 430. 

Anselm, of Canterbury, 227; his dis- 
cussion of original sin, 365; on the 
transmission of sin, 367. 

Aquinas, Thomas, 237 ; an necessity 
and freedom, 236 ; on the divine per- 
mission of sm, 305, 324 ; his discus- 
sion of original sin, 369. 

Arabic schools, scepticism in the Span- 
ish, 443. 

Aristotle, on the desire of happiness, 
314. 

Arnobius, on future punishment, 412. 

Arnold, Matthew, on the conversion of 
Paul, 493. 495. 

Articles of the Church of England, as 
relating to episcopacy, 213 seq. 



Atheism, grows out of the fact that 
God is imperceptible by the senses, 
469 ; or out of the notion that second 
causes exclude the first cause, 470; 
or out of the assumption that me- 
chanical causes exclude design, 472 ; 
or out of the assumption that the 
uniformity of nature is inconsistent 
with theism, 473 ; or out of the belief 
that the Bible contradicts science, 
474; or out of the supposed imper- 
fection of nature, 477 ; disproved by 
the revelation of God in the soul, 
478 ; by the marks of design in the 
world, 480 ; by the revelation of Grod 
in nature, 483 ; by the revelation of 
God in Christ, 484 ; involves sin, 485. 

Augustine, his Latin training, 49 ; on 
the use of incense, 59; his Confes- 
sions^ 227 ; on the idea of necessity, 
236 ; on liberty ad lUrumvis, 238 ; on 
the desire of happiness, 314; on th& 
voluntary nature of sin, 342 ; relation, 
of his theory of original sin to real- 
ism, 359 ; on the origin of souls, 361; 
seq.; his diflficulties in regard, to 
creationism, 364 ; his letter to Jerome 
on original sin, 363 seq. 

Augustinians admit the power of con^ 
trary choice, 309. 



Bacon, Lord, on the admission of pres- 
byterian ministers to English par- 
ishes, 187. 



546 



mDEX. 



Bancroft, Dr., on the jure divino su- 
periority of bishops, 185. 

Baronius, Cardinal, on the donation of 
Constantino, 74 ; on the Bible and 
science, 475. 

Baxter, Richard, his conversation with 
Ussher on Presbyterian ordination, 
201. 

Becon, Thomas, on the identity of 
bishop and presbyter, 185. 

Bellamy, Joseph, on the divine permis- 
sion of sin, 307. 

Bellarmine, on the Constance decrees, 
121. 

Bernard, St., characterized, 228. 

Bible, the, its relation to natural sci- 
ence, 474 seq. 

Bishops, not considered a distinct 
order, in the middle ages, 183. 

Bonaparte, jS'apoleon, his dealings with 
the Popes, 86. 

Boniface VIII. , Pope, his conflict with 
the Colonnas, 79 ; how described by 
Dante, 79 seq. 

Bowen, Prof. Francis, on the merit of 
Berkeley, 230. 

Bramhall, Archbishop, his interpreta- 
tion of the Act of Uniformity, 222. 

Brentius, on original sin, 374. 

Brescia, Arnold of, his aims and career, 
76. 

Brumalia, 57. 

Buckle, H. T., his philosophy, 453. 

Buckminster, Joseph S., his eloquence 
in the pulpit, 253. 

Burnet, Bishop, his character as a his- 
torian, 192. 

Butler, Bishop, on the desire of happi- 
ness, 315. 

Church, the Roman Catholic, its use- 
fulness in the middle ages, 162; the 
rule of society by a sacerdotal class, 
163 ; unfavorable to liberty, 166 ; does 
not condemn religious persecution, 
169 ; effect of commerce upon the au- 
thority of its clergy, 171 ; its influence 
in South America and Mexico, 172 ; in 
a struggle to revive medisevalism, 175 ; 
how far in agreement with the Pro- 



testant, 439 ; its doctrine of tradi- 
tion, 440 ; its doctrine of church au- 
thority, 440. See Churchy the Latin. 

Civilization, constituent elements of, 
161 ; influence of Christianity upon, 
162. 

Clarendon, on the growth of High 
Church notions in England, 195. 

Clarke, Dr. Samuel, his view of liberty 
and necessity, 249. 

Clement, of Alexandria, on the art of 
painting, 53 ; on future punishment, 
412 ; on the Four Gospels, 522. 

Clement, of Rome, his Epistle to the 
Corinthians, 45 ; on the method of 
appointing church officers, 151. 

Cocceius, on original sin, 374 ; his rela- 
tion to the Federal theology, 375. 

Coligny, Gaspard de, his character, 9; 
at the court of Charles IX., 15 ; the 
attempt to assassinate him, 19 ; death 
of, 23. 

Collins, his doctrine of liberty com- 
pared with that of Edwards, 234 seq. 

Conclave, origin of the Papal, 151 seq. 

Cajetan, on Aquinas's doctrine of ori- 
ginal sin, 370. 

Calvin, John, his influence on France, 
5 ; his view of episcopacy, 196 ; on 
the divine permission of sin, 306 , his 
discussion of original sin, 371 seq. ; 
contrasted with Wesley, 500. 

Calvinism, its spread in France, 5 ; 
on the state of the vidll after the fall, 
294; supralapsarian, 347; the doc^ 
trine of future punishment in, 436 
seq. 

Canon, not to be determined by church 
authority, 445. 

Cardinals, origin of, 148 seq. ; how ap- 
pointed, 150 ; their functions, 151. 

Cardwell, on changes in the Prayer 
Book at the Restoration, 220. 

Carpocratians, their use of images of 
Jesus, 55. 

Catacombs, pictures in the, 54. 

Catherine de Medici, her character, 6 ; 
her leading purpose, 11; her connec- 
tion with the massacre of St. Bartho- 
lomew, 19 seq. ; her death, 33. 



INDEX. 



547 



Catharinus, on imputation, 400. 

Cavour, Count, 158. 

Celestine III., Pope, 155. 

Channing, character of his eloquence, 
258 ; sources of his power, 254 , early 
influences upon his mind, 262 ; stud- 
ies Ferguson and Hutcheson, 262 ; 
sentimental period in his early life, 
263 ; his religious consecration, 263 ; 
a student of Price, 264; his inter- 
course with Hopkins, 264; his idea 
of the dignity of human nature, 266 ; 
imperfect discernment of the guilt and 
power of sin, 267 seq. ; captivated by 
an ideal of human nature, 269; his 
doctrine of the Fatherhood of God, 
270 ; on the purpose of the mission of 
Christ, 273 ; on the relation of Christ's 
death to the remission of sin, 274 ; on 
the essentials of Christian doctrine, 
275 ; his relation to Parkerism, 279 
seq. ; his discourse on war, 281 seq. ; 
his papers on slavery, 283. 

Charlemagne, his authority in relation 
to the popes, 72 seq. , J. 48. 

Charles IX., Kiiig of France, his char- 
acter, 15 ; his death, 32. 

Chauncey, Dr. Charles, on future pun- 
ishment, 436. 

Christ, his eternal sonship, 272; the 
Nicene doctrine respecting, 273. 

.Christianity, Jewish stage of, 34; 
Greek stage of, 35; its relation to 
paganism, 36 seq. ; not to be thought 
out a priori^ 461. 

Chrysostom, on the observance of 
Christmas, 56. 

Church, the Eastern, 44; its stagna- 
tion, 439. 

Church of England, High Church doc- 
trine in the, 176. 

Church, the Latin, had the Roman ge- 
nius for ruling, 45 ; its ideal of impe- 
rialism, 46 ; its legal spirit, 47 ; con- 
trasted with the Greek Church, 49 ; 
contrasted with Teutonic Christian- 
ity, 49; its cultus of angels and 
saints, 50 seq. ; localizing of worship 
in, 52 ; its use of image and pictures, 
53 ; multiplying of festivals in, 56 ; 



its customs and ceremonies resem- 
bling those of heathenism, 58 seq. 
See Churchy the liomaii Catholic. 

Constance, the Council of, its charac- 
ter, 101 ; its oecumenical authority, 
105 ; its condemnation of Huss, 109 
seq. 

Constantino, the pretended donation 
of, 74. 

Constantia, sister of Constantine, 54. 

Cosin, Bishop, on the admission of 
presbyterian ministers to English 
parishes, 187. 

Council, the Vatican, its definition of 
the mfallibility of the Pope, 132; 
its definition of the Pope's jurisdic- 
tion in the church, 133. 

Cranmer, invites Peter Martyr and 
Bucer to England, 182 ; his plan for 
a general synod of Protestants, 183 ; 
on the identity of bishop and pres- 
byter, 184; his final views on epis- 
copacy, 218. 

Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, on the 
choice of Cornelius to the Roman 
Bishopric, 147. 

Dante, his protest against the tem- 
poral power of the popes, 91. 

Decretals, the pseudo-Isodorian, 74. 

De Rossi, on the pictures in the Cata- 
combs, 54. 

Design, the argument of, 480 seq. 

Development, Dr. Newman's theory 
of, 42. 

Diodore of Tarsus, on future punish- 
ment, 415. 

Doddridge, Philip, his theology, 239 ; 
on original sin, 396. 

Dominions Soto, on imputation, 401, 

Dort, the synod of, delegates from the 
English Church in, 190. 

Dwight, President T. , character of his 
influence as a theologian, 259 ; char- 
acter of his influence as a preacher, 
260 ; on original sin, 298 seq. ; on re- 
generation, 301 ; on the desire of 
happiness, 315. 

Edwards, Jonathan, his precocity, 



548 



INDEX, 



228 ; a Berkeleian, 229 seq. ; his first 
acquaintance with Berkeley's doc- 
trine, 231 ; how influenced by Locke, 
231 ; his doctrine on the Will com- 
pared with that of Hobbes and Col- 
lins, 234; his objection to the term 
"necessary," 236; a champion of 
Calvinism, 237; his conception of 
freedom, 238 ; his confidence in rea- 
soning, 239 ; his conception of origi- 
nal sin, 239 ; his ethical theory, 241 
seq. ; on the meaning of self-love, 

243 ; on God's chief end in creation, 

244 ; his acquaintance with Hutche- 
son, 245 ; his History of Redemp- 
tion^ 246 ; his idea of predestination, 
247 ; his studious habits, 251 ; the 
theological movement led by him, 
256 ; his doctrine of original sin, 
257 ; drift of his treatise on the Will, 
258 ; on our identity with Adam, 
290 ; how far indebted to Locke, 

291 ; his idea of "natural ability," 

292 ; his relation to Hobbes and Col- 
lins, 293 ; the relation of his doc- 
trine on the Will to former Calvin- 
ism, 294 ; on the desire of happiness, 
314 ; on our identity with Adam, 
398. 

Edwards, Jonathan, Jr.. state of Cal- 
vinism when his father began his 
work, 289 ; on future punishment, 
436. 

Election, Dr. N. W. Taylor's concep- 
tion of, 325. 

Elizabeth. Queen, her suspension of 
Archbishop Grindal, 185. 

Emmons, Dr. Nathaniel, on original 
sin, 296. 

England, the Reformation in, 1. 

England, Church of, its opportunities 
for a more catholic comprehension, 
224 

Epicurus, on the existence of evil, 321. 

Epiphany, the feast of, 56. 

Erastianism, its spread among Protes- 
tants, 185 ; opposed by Calvin, 
185. 

Erskine, Thomas, on future punish- 
ment, 435. 



Eschatology, views of German theolo- 
gians concerning, 431. 

Eugene HI, Pope, 155. 

Eugene IV., Pope, sanctions the pro- 
ceedings of the Council of Constance, 
108. 

Eusebius, of Caesarea, on the use of 
images. 54. 

Everett, Edward, on the eloquence of 
the younger Buckminster, 253. 

Evolution, not inconsistent with de- 
sign, 481. 

Fagius, Paul, made teacher at Cam- 
bridge, 182. 

Faith, its relation to reason according 
to Protestantism, 443 seq. 

Ferguson, influence of his writings on 
Channing, 262. 

Festivals, the early Christian. 56 seq. 

Fichte, the younger, his opinion of Ed- 
wards's theory of virtue, 245. 

Field, Dean, on the identity of bishop 
and presbyter, 184. 

Fitch, Dr. E. T.,on the scientia media, 
335. 

Fleetwood, Bishop, on the admission 
of presbyterian noinisters to English 
parishes, 187. 

Formula Consensus Helvetica^ 391. 

Foster, John, on future punishment, 
431. 

France, in the age of the reformation, 
2; development of its territory, 2; 
its ruling families, 3. 

France, materials of civil war in, 10. 

France, beginning of the civil wars in, 
11. 

Francis I., king of France, 3 ; his con- 
cordat with Pope Leo X., 4. 

Francis IL, king of France, 5. 

Eraser, Prof., on Edwards's acquain- 
tance with Berkeley, 231. 

Frederick II., the emperor, 155. 

Fulke, master of Pembroke College, on 
the identity of bishop and presby- 
ter, 185. 

Galileo, opposed by scientific men, 463, 



INDEX. 



549 



Gallicanism, its principles, 110 ; how 
regarded by Manning, 138 ; Bossuet's 
definition of, 128. 

Garrison, W. L., his method of com- 
bating slavery, 283. 

Germany, the reformation in, 1. 

Gieseler, reply to a criticism of Hefele 
on, 117. 

Gladstone, W. E., his discussion of the 
Vatican decrees, 133; on the au- 
thority and meaning of the papal 
sj'Uabus, 134; on the power of juris- 
diction given to the Pope, 135 ; on the 
Pope's deposing power, 136 ; on the 
relation of the Roman Catholic theo- 
ries to liberty, 138 ; on the breach of 
pledges given by the Roman Catholic 
clergy in Great Britain. 138 ; on the 
difference between Protestants and 
Catholics as to civil loyalty, 139. 

Gospels, the synoptic, their origin, 513. 

Gratry, M., on the heresy of Honorius, 
12i seq. 

Gregory of Nazianzus, on future pun- 
ishment, 445. 

Gregory of Nyssa, on future punish- 
ment, 415. 

Gregory I., Pope, 45 ; his reluctance to 
accept the station, 155. 

Gregory VII. , Pope, and Henry IV. of 
Germany, 45. 

Gregory XITI., Pope, approves of the 
massacre of St. Bartholomew, 27. 

Guise, Duke Francis of, 8 ; assassina- 
tion of, 12. 

Guise, Duke Henry of, his connection 
with the massacre of St. Bartholo- 
mew, 23; killed at Blois, 32. 

Guizot, on the temporal kingdom of the 
popes, 96 seq. 

Hades, early Christian doctrine con- 
cerning, 416 ; its import in the New 
Testament, 417. 

Hall, Bishop, on the admission of non- 
episcopal ministers to preferment in 
the English Church, 190 ; on the vali- 
dity of Presbyterian ordination, 203 
seq. ; 209. 

Hall, Robert, on the relation of Godwin 



to Edwards, 244 ; on future punish- 
ment, 414 ; abandoned materialism, 
465. 

Hallam, on the doctrine of English re- 
formers respecting episcopacy, 180 ; 
on the admission of foreigners to 
preferment in th-e English Church 
without reordination, 186. 

Hamilton, Sir William, his view of lib- 
erty and necessity, 250 ; on the rela- 
tion of Edwards to Collins, 293. 

Hebrews, the Gospel of the, 514. 

Hefele, Bishop, his theory respecting 
Pope and Council, 102 ; on the rela- 
tion of the Pope to the Council of Ni- 
cea, 103 ; on the decrees of the fourth 
and fifth sessions of the Council of 
Constance, 105 seq. ; on the execu- 
tion of Huss, 110 seq. ; on the safe- 
conduct given by Sigismund to Huss, 
113 seq. ; on Pope Honorius, 160. 

Hegel, on the Reformation, 50. 

Henry of Navarre, his projected mar- 
riage with Margaret, 16 ; his mar- 
riage, 18. 

Henry II., king of France, his treat- 
ment of the Protestants, 4; his 
treaty with Philip II. for the exter- 
mination of heresy, 5 ; his death, 5. 

Henry IH. , king of Prance, death of, 
33. 

Hildebrand, see Gregory VII. 

History, the apostle Paul's philosophy 
of, 490. 

Hobbes, his doctrine of liberty com- 
pared with that of Edwards, 234. , 

Hodge, Dr. A. A., his Outlines of 
Theology, 285. 

Hodge, Dr. Charles, his article on Pres- 
byterian Reunion, 285 ; criticism of 
his representation of Dr. N. W. Tay- 
lor's theology, 332 seq. 

Honorius, Pope, embraced heresy, 123 
seq. 

Hooker, Richard, recognizes the valid- 
ity of presbyterian ordination, 186, 
198 ; on the competency of the church 
to change its government, 210. 

Hopkins, President Mark, on the de- 
sire of happiness, 315. 



550 



INDEX. 



Hopkins, Dr. Samuel, his influence on 
Channing, 264: ; on original sin, 295 ; 
on diyine efficiency, 295 ; on the di- 
vine permission of sin, 307. 

Hopkinsianism, characterized, 257. 

Hosius, Bishop, his connection with 
the council of Nicea, 103. 

Howe, John, on God's Prescience of 
sin, 327. 

Hume, David, on the existence of evil, 
321. 

Huss, John, his principles, 109 ; his ex- 
ecution, 110 ; the safe-conduct given 
to him, 113 seq. ; his treatment by 
the Council of Constance, 119 seq. 

Hutcheson, the Scottish philosopher, 
245; influence of his writings on 
Channing, 262. 

Huxley, Prof., on the nature of matter, 
452; his philosophy of induction, 
452. 

Hyacinthe, Pere, 67 ; his ecclesiastical 
position, 160. 



Images, used in worship, 53 seq. ; 

Augustine on the worship of, 55. 
Imputation of Adam's sin, Augustinian 

philosophy of, 386 ; Roman Catholic 

•theory of, 400. 
Imputa-cion, Federal doctrine of, ob- 
jections to it, 4C3 seq. 
Incense, its use in churches, 59. 
Innocent II., Pope, 155. 
Innocent III. , Pope, 46 ; builds up the 

•papal kingdom, 77, 155. 
Innocent VIII., Pope, his character, 

84. 
Intermediate state, Protestant views 

respecting, 420 seq. 
Irenaeus, wrote in Greek, 35 ; a witness 

to the gospels, 532. 
Italy, Protestantism in, 2 ; restoration 

of its unity, 157. 



James I., king, sends delegates to the 

Synod of Dort, 190. 
Jansenists, on the resistibility of grace, 

294. 



Jansenius, on the covenant theory of 

imputation, 402. 
Jeanne D' Albret, the queen of E'avarre, 

at Blois, 16 ; her death, 17. 
Jerome, St. , on the purity of the clergy, 

184. 
Jewel, Bishop, on the identity of bishop 

and presbyter, 184 ; on the origin of 

bishops, 238; his use of the term 

"order," 216. 
John, the Gospel of, its genuineness, 

528 ; quoted by Justin, 529. 
Johnson, Dr. Samuel, a tutor in Yale 

Cohege, 231. 
Joseph II., the emperor, his reforms, 

95. 
Julian, of Eclanuma, his opposition to 

Auguatinism, 361. 
Julius II., Pope, builds up the states of 

the church, 85. 
Justin Martyr, on future punishment, 

411 ; the gospels used by him, 514 

seq. ; his method of quotation, 517 ; 

source of his quotations, 521. 
Justinian, his treatment of the popes, 

148. 

Keble, John, on the jure divino theory 
of episcopacy, 183 ; on the admission 
of non-episcopal ministers to English 
parishes, 192. 

Kingdom, the Pope's temporal, its rise, 
69 ; after the donation of Pepin, 72 ; 
how aflFected by the divisions in the 
Frank empire, 74 ; enlarged by the 
bequest of Matilda, 75 ; enlarged by 
Innocent III. , 77 ; concessions ex- 
torted by the cities in, 78 ; its condi- 
tion during the " Babylonian captiv- 
ity," 81 ; how affected by the Pope's 
return to Rome, 82 ; in the latter 
part of the 15th century, 83 seq.; 
strengthened by Julius II., 86 ; dur- 
ing the French revolution, 86 ; under 
Pius IX., 87 ; character of the gov- 
ernment in, 88 ; its influence on the 
character of the popes, 89 seq.; 
Guizot on the expediency of continu- 
ing, 96; its absorption in the king- 
dom of Italy, 99. 



INDEX. 



551 



La Place, his alleged atheism, 469. 

Law, Roman, its influence on theology, 
47. 

Lasco, John a, superintendent of the 
foreign churches in London, 210. 

Lathbury, on the doctrine of the Eng- 
lish reformers respecting episcopacy, 
177. 

Laud, Archbishop, his connection with 
the jure divino doctrine of episcopa- 
cy, 194. 

League, Catholic, in France, 12. 

Leibnitz, on the divine permission of 
sin, 323. 

Leo I. , Pope, on the worship of the sun 
among Christians, 57. 

Leo III., Pope, crowns Charlemagne, 
68, 73. 

Leo X., Pope, how described by Father 
Paul Sarpi, 90 ; made cardinal, 150. 

Liberius, Pope, errs from the faith, 122. 

Liberty and necessity, Dr. Samuel 
Clarke's view of, 249 ; the later New 
England theology on, 249; Sir Wil- 
liam Hamilton's doctrine respecting, 
250; Dr. Mozley's conception of, 
250 ; Dr. N. W. Taylor's theory of, 
308 seq. 

Lightf oot, Bishop, on the angels of the 
Apocalypse, 201. 

Locke, John, his influence on Edwards, 
231 ; his doctrine of liberty and ne- 
cessity, 232 ; the influence of his writ- 
ings in New England, 255 ; on the de- 
sire of happiness, 314 ; on the an- 
nihilation of the wicked, 431. 

Lombards, conquest of, by Pepin, 71. 

Louis of Conde, his character, 9. 

Louis XL, king of France, 3. 

Luther, Martin, assaulted central dog- 
mas, 67 ; against the doctrine of a 
priestly order in the church, 196. 

Lutheranism in France, 4. 



Machiavelli, his political ethics, 7. 

Mackintosh, Sir James, his opinion of 
Jonathan Edwards, 228 ; his descrip- 
tion of Edwards's theory of virtue, 



Macaulay, his character as a historian, 
192. 

Maine, Mr., on the influence of Roman 
law upon theology, 47. 

Manning, Cardinal, on Bossuet, 127 ; in 
favor of declaring the Pope's infalli- 
bility, 130. 

Marcion's gospel, its origin, 523. 

Margaret, sister of Francis I., 66. 

Margaret of Valois, her account of the 
massacre of St. Bartholomew, 25. 

Martensen, on future punishment, 429. 

Martin V., Pope, his Bull against the 
Hussites, 105 ; sanctions the proceed- 
ings of the Council of Constance, 107. 

Massacre of St. Bartholomew, the 
causes and instruments of the, 28 seq. 

Matilda, Countess of Tuscany, her be- 
quest to the Papal See, 75. 

Maurice, F. D., on Edwards's treatise 
on the Will, 227 ; on future punish- 
ment, 431. 

IMelanchthcn, Philip, his view of epis- 
copacy, 196 ; on the odium theologi- 
cum, 285 ; persecution of, 285 ; on 
original sin, 374; on the scepticism 
of the Renaissance, 442. 

Mill, Mr. J. S., on the relation of posi- 
tivism to theism, 449 ; on miracles, 
536. 

Miracles, ecclesiastical, S8. 

Miracles, source of disbelief in, 453; 
validity of the testimony to, 454 ; 
Renan on, 455 ; harmonize with na- 
ture, 473 ; their credibility, 536 seq. 

Mclinists, their doctrine of " sufficient 
grace," 336. 

Montaigne, his scepticism, 443. 

Morrison, John, licensed to preach by 
Archbishop Grindal, 191. 

Mozly, Dr. J. B., his review of New- 
man's essay on Development, 43 ; his 
view of liberty and necessity, 250. 

Miiller, Julius, on the supralapsarian 
doctrine, 248, 347 ; on future punish- 
ment, 424. 

Neal, on the admission of non-episco- 
pal ministers to preferment in the 
EngUsh Church, 191. 



552 



INDEX. 



Neander, on future punishment, 423 
seq. 

Newman, Cardinal, his theory of de- 
velopment, 42 ; on the Pope's "power 
of jurisdiction," 136; on the Pope's 
control over the conscience, 138, 238. 

Nicholas I., Pope, 73. 

Nicholas II., Pope, his regulations for 
the election of popes, 149, 

Nitzsch, C. L, on future punishment, 
424. 

Norton, Andrews, his scholarship, 254 ; 
his address to the Cambridge divinity- 
school, 276. 

Old Catholic movement, the, 67. 
Ordinal, proper construction of the, 

214 seq. ; the changes in, in 1661, 

217. 
Origen, on the Christian festivals, 56; 

on future punishment, 412. 
Otho I., his interference in Italy, 75. 
Owen, John, his discussion of original 

sin, 380 ; on imputation, 383. 

Palacky, on the safe-conduct given to 
Huss, 113. 

Palfrey, Dr. John G., on the eloquence 
of the younger Buckminster, 253. 

Papacy, the Latin spirit in the, 45 ; its 
theocratic claim in the middle ages, 
68; its relation to political society in 
the past and present, 141. 

Papias, his testimony to the gospels, 
525. 

Parens, on imputation, 387. 

Parker, J. H., on the paintings in the 
catacombs, 54. 

Parker, Theodore, his popular talents, 
354 ; Unitarianism characterized by, 
261 ; his rejection of miracles, 277. 

Pascal, Blaise, 228 ; on the resistibility 
of grace, 394. 

Paschal III., Pope, 73. 

Paul, the apostle, religious before his 
conversion, 488; righteousness, his 
ideal, 489 ; his view of the ofl&ce of 
the Mosaic system, 489 ; his sense of 
sin, 491 ; how delivered by Christ,492 ; 
steps in his conversion, 494 ; impor- 



tance to him of the resurrection of 

Christ, 495 ; his attitude towards Ju- 
daizing tendencies, 496 ; hated by the 
Jews, 497; motive of his discussion 
of election, 498 ; his type of doctrine, 
500 ; exalts love, 503 ; as a mission- 
ary, 504 ; his mingled shrewdness and 
enthusiasm, 504 ; not versed in Greek 
learning, 505 ; his tenderness, 509 ; 
his consecration, 509 ; lessons from 
his life, 510. 

Peabody, Ephraim, 254. 

Pelagianism, contrasted with the the- 
ology of Dr. N. W. Taylor, oo3 ; its 
leading ideas, 329 ; how defined by 
Augustine, 330 ; superficial character 
of, 459. 

Pepin, his conquest of the Lombards, 
71 ; his donation to the Pope, 71. 

Peter, the Apostle, his relation to the 
other apostles and to the church, 146 ; 
Roman Catholic idea of his prece- 
dence, 146. 

Peter Lombard, his discussion of origi- 
nal sin, 368. 

Pliilip II. of Spain, his ambitious 
schemes, 14. 

Philosophy, its relation to faith, 447 
seq. 

Phocas, the patron saint of sailors, 58. 

Pilkington, Bishop, on the identity of 
bishop and presbyter, 185. 

Pius VI., Pope, a prisoner in France, 
87. 

Pius VII., Pope, Napoleon's conflict 
with, 87. 

Pius IX. , Pope, his policy at the outset, 
87 ; protest against the law of papal 
guarantees, 100; his liberal meas- 
ures, 156; his political plans, 156 ; 
his abandonment of the liberal pol- 
icy, 157 ; promulgates the dogma of 
the Immaculate Conception, 158 ; in- 
fluence of the Jesuits upon, 159 ; hia 
Syllabus, 159 ; summons the Vatican 
Council, 159. 

Placaeus, Joshua, his doctrine of im- 
putation, 384, 389 seq. 

Pope, origin of the term, 143 ; the of- 
fice of the, 143 ; his relation to other 



INDEX. 



553 



bishops, 143 ; his authority in rela- 
tion to cecumenical councils, 144 ; 
meaning of the Vatican definition of 
his infallibility, 144; his legislative 
and judicial powers, 145 ; method of 
electing the, 153 ; coronation and en- 
thronement of the, 154. 
Protestantism, stimulates mental en- 
ergy, 164 ; its effect in Holland, 165 ; 
in England, 165 ; in the United 
States, 165 ; favors universal educa- 
tion, 165; circulates the Scriptures, 
166 ; favors civil and religious liber- 
ty, 166 seq. ; condemns religious per- 
secution, 170; supplants the ascetic 
type of religion, 1 70 ; keeps alive the 
spirit of progress, 171 ; not responsi- 
ble for modern unbelief, 172 ; devises 
means of preventing social evils, 
175; its type in Southern Europe, 

m. 

Pseudo-Dionysius, on the use of in- 
cense in worship, 60. 
Punishment, future, the doctrine of, 
in the Anglican Church, 433 ; Canon 
Farrar on, 433 ; Rev. T. Binney on, 
434 ; Thomas Erskine on, 435 ; Dr. 
. Charles Chauncey on, 436 ; the 
younger Edwards on, 436 ; its con- 
nection with Calvinism, 436 seq.; 
Justin Martyr's view of, 411 ; Ire- 
nseus's view of, 411 ; Jewish opin- 
ions respecting, 410; doctrine of 
Arnobius concerning, 412 ; Origen's 
doctrine of, 412; the design of, 413 ; 
view of Robert Hall concerning, 414 ; 
Gregory of Nyssa on, 415; the An- 
tioch school on, 415; Theodore of 
Mopsuestia on, 415; rejection of 
Origen's opinion on, 415; recent Ger- 
man theologians on, 420 seq.; 
Schleiermacher on, 422; Neander 
on, 422; Kitsch on, 424; Julius 
Miiller on, 424 ; Rothe on, 426 seq.; 
Martensen on, 429. 
Purgatory, history of the doctrine of, 
416 ; Augustine's view of, 418 ; view 
of the Eastern Church concerning, 
418 ; doctrine of, attacked by the re- 
formers, 418. 



Ramus, Peter, his death, 24. 
Rationalism, its distinguishing note, 
441 ; its variety of phases, 441 ; not 
the legitimate fruit of Protestantism, 
442; its three forms, 449; in the 
form of positivism, 449 ; in the form 
of agnosticism, 451 ; in the field of 
history, 453 ; rejects inspiration, 
456 ; ignores the darkening influence 
of sin, 457; not to be met by opposi- 
tion to science, 462; eff'ect of an 
awakening of the moral nature on, 
465. 

Reformers, the English, their theory 
of Episcopacy, 181 seq. 

Regeneration, Dr. N. W. Taylor's con- 
ception of, 319. 

Religion, its foundation in human na- 
ture, 450. 

Renan, his bias, 455 ; on the character 
of Paul, 493. 

Restoration, universal, 431. 

Ridgeley, on original sin, 396. 

Rienzi, Cola di, his career, 81. 

Ripley, George, his learning, 254 ; his 
reply to Andrews Norton, 276. 

Roman Catholicism, a return to the old 
dispensation, 40. 

Rothe, on future punishment, 426. 

St Germain, peace of, 13. 

Salviati, Cardinal, 31. 

Samts, worship of, 51 seq. 

Sandys, Archbishop of York, his con- 
flict with Whittingham, 189; con- 
sults the Zurich pastors on church 
government, 211. 

Saturnalia, 56. 

Savigny, on Pepin's donation to the 
Pope, 71. 

Saumur. the French school of, 384. 

Scepticism, in the Roman Catholic 
Church, 442. 

Schleiermacher, on future punishment, 
422. 

Science, the function of physical and 
natural, 472 ; not contradictory to the 
Bible, 474. 
Scientia media^ 335 seq. 



554 



INDEX. 



Scriptures, Protestant doctrine of the 
authority of, 456. 

Scotland, the reformation in, 2. 

Sectarianism, dejline of, 353. 

Self-love, Edwards on the idea of, 
243. 

Sigillaria, 57. 

Sigismund, the Emperor, the safe-con- 
duct given by him to Huss, 113. 

Sin, divine permission of, 305 seq. ; Dr. 
N.W.Taylor's definitions of. 310 seq.; 
an evident fact in human character, 
458. 

Sin, original, Edwards's doctrine con- 
cerning, 239; Augustinian theory, 
356 ; Federal theory of, 357 ; rela- 
tion of the Federal to the Augus- 
tinian doctrine of, 378 seq. 

Sixtus IV. , Pope, 8 ; his character, 
83. 

SmaUey, Dr. John, on. possible im- 
provements in theology, 287 ; on the 
doctrine of original sin, 297. 

Smith, Dean, of Canterbury, 223. 

Spain, Protestantism in. 2. 

Spencer, Herbert, on the relativity of 
knowledge. 451. 

Stanley, Dean, on the doctrine of the 
English reformers respecting episco- 
pacy, 17i8. 

Stewart, Dugald, his opinion of Jona- 
than Edwards.^ 227. 

Stillingfleet, Bishop, his views of epis- 
copacy, 205 seq. 

Stuart, Mary, 9 ; her return to Scot- 
land, 11. 

Stuart, Moses, his conception of the 
Trinity, 273. 

'"Supernatural Religion," its object, 
512; reproduces the Tubingen criti- 
cism, 513; on Justin's quotations, 514 
seq.; on Justin's ''Memoirs," 515 
seq. ; on the Muratorian Canon, 522 ; 
on Marcion's gospel, 523 seq.; on the 
testimony of Papias, 525 ; on the 
fourth gospel, 529 seq.; on the testi- 
mony of Irenaeus, 531 ; on miracles, 
526 seq. ; on the alleged credulity of 
the Jews, 539 ; its capital defect, 
543. 



Sutri, the synod of, 75. 

Syllabus, issue of it, by Pius IX., 159. 

Sj'mbolism, the nature of, 62 ; its 

proper limits in Christian worship, 

63 seq. 

Tauler, John, 228. 

Taylor, Dr. John, read in New England, 
256. 

Taylor, Dr. N. W., his idea of election^ 
325 seq., 338; of grace in regenera- 
tion, 340 ; on sin as a principle, 344, 
320 seq. ; on the divine permission 
of sin, 347 ; his aim as a theologian, 
308 ; on the problem of liberty and 
necessity, 308 ; on the voluntary 
nature of sin, 310 ; on sin as a per- 
manent principle, 310 ; on the con- 
nection of our sin with that of 
Adam, 311 ; on the tendency to sin, 
311; on sinfulness by "nature," 
312 ; opposes the HopMusian theory 
of divine eflficiency, 312 ; on moral 
inability, 313; his "self-love the- 
ory," 313 seq. ; his use of the term 
"self-love," 317; on the doctrine of 
regeneration, 319; on special grace, 
323 ; not a Pelagian, 329 seq. ; his 
personal traits, 2S6 ; his metaphy- 
sical talents, 287. 

Tertullian, his style, 36 ; his legal 
phraseology, 48 ; on the art of paint- 
ing, 53. 

Theodore of Mopsuestia, on future 
punishment, 415. 

Theology, New England, its belief in 
progress, 287 ; its free spirit of in- 
quiry, 288. 

Theology, New Haven, its essential 
features, 347 seq. 

Transcendentalism, its rise in New 
England. 277. 

Travers, Master of the Temple, why 
deposed by Whitgift, 189 ; teacher 
of Ussher, 189. 

Turretine, Francis, his theory of impu- 
tation, 393. 

Ultramontanism, its character, 139. 
Unitarianism, its rise in New England, 
255 seq. ; developed in antagonism to 



INDEX. 



555 



the theology of Edwards and Hop- 
kins, 256 seq.; why not found in 
Connecticut, 259 ; connected with a 
new type of culture in New England, 
260 seq. 

Universalism, 413. 

Ussher, Archbishop, his views of epis- 
copacy, 199 seq. 

Vassy, the massacre of, 11. 

Vatican, the Council of the, how com- 
posed, 126 ; Mr. Gladstone's discus- 
sions of its decrees, 132 seq. 

Vendome, Anthony of, his character, 

9. 

Victor Emanuel, takes possession of 

Rome, 99, 157. 
Virtue, Edwards's theory o£, 241 seq.; 

265. 
Vitringa, Campegius, on the theology 

of the covenants, 377. 

War, the morality of, 281. 
Ware, Henry, Jr., his piety, 254. 
Watts, Isaac, on original sin, 239, 397. 
Weissman, on the theology of the Cov- 
enants, 375. 



Wesley, John, contrasted with Calvin, 

500. 
Westminster creeds, on the imputation 

of Adam's sin, 383. 
Whately, Archbishop, on false claims 

to Catholicity, 226; on the future 

state, 431; on the function of 

science, 472. 
Whitgift, his doctrine of episcopacy, 

186 ; on church ceremonies and 

government, 193. 
Whittingham, Dean of Durham, the 

attempt to depose him, 188. 
William III., his Calvinism, 248. 
Woods, Dr. Leonard, on original sin, 

302 ; on moral agency, 303. 

Zabarella, Cardinal, in the Council of 
Constance, 105 seq. 

Zacharias, Pope, 70. 

Zurich Letters, the, illustrate the in- 
timate relations of the English and 
the continental churches, 210. 

Zwingle, his doctrine of original sin, 
353. 



|^fli(| flni K^LaHonalisin. 

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"The book impresses us as clear, cogent and helpful, as vigorous in style as it is 
honest in purpose, and calculated to render valuable service in showmg that religion and 
science are not antagonists but allies, and that both lead up toward the one God. We 
fancy that a good many readers of this volume will entertain toward the author a feehng 
of sincere personal gratitude." — Boston Journal. 

" On the whole, we do not know of a book which may better be commended to 
thoughtful persons whose minds have been unsettled by objections of modern thought. 
It will be found a wholesome work for every minister in the land to read." 

— Examiner and Chronicle. 

" It is a long time since we have met with an abler or fresher theological treatise 
than Old Faiths in New Light, by Newman Smvth, an author who in his work on 
"The Religious Feeling" has already shown ability as an expounder of Christian 
doctrine." — IndepetiHeiit. 



*^* For sale by all booksellers, or sent J>ostpazd, upon receipt of price., 

^^ CHART.ES SCRIBNER'S SONS, 

Nos. 743 AND 745 Broadway, New York. 



"The world has waited for this publication, and now that it has appeared, it 

will be diligently read by all men." 



THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

PRINCE METTERNIOH. 

Edited by his Son, Prince Metternich. Translated by Robina Napier, 
WziA. a minute index prepared especially /or this edition, 

2 vols., 8vo. With Portrait and Fac-similes - - $5.00. 



For twenty years— since it became known at his death that the great diplomatist 
of the Napoleonic period had left his memoirs — the pubHcation of this book has been 
looked for with such interest as perhaps no other personal revelations could have 
aroused. Prince Metternich's own directions kept it back during this time; and this 
fact, with the complete secresy preserved as to the contents of the manuscript, rightly 
led to the belief that he had treated the events and persons of his day with an un- 
sparing candor. 

The simultaneous publication of the memoirs in Germany, France, England and 
America is therefore something more than a literary event. Metternich alone held the 
keys of the most secret history of the most important epoch in modern times, and in 
this book he gives them up — an impossibility during his life. Even to especial students, 
who know what problems these disclosures have been expected to solve, the value of 
•what they open will be as surprising as the extraordinary care with which they have 
been guarded. 

The announcement alone is of sufficient interest, that we are at last in possession 
of the autobiography of the statesman who from the French Revolution to Waterloo, 
took part in the making of nearly every great treaty, and was himself the negotiator 
of the greatest ; and who from 1806 to 1815, was the guiding mind of the vast combin- 
ations which defeated Napoleon aiiAdecided the form of modern Europe. 



EXTRACTS FROM REVIEWS OF THE METTERNICH 
MEMOIRS. 

_ " The great chancellor writes with an exceedingly easy pen. It is indeed inter- 
esting to follow his narration, so clear that one never loses the thread of his story, and 
so graphic that we get a glimpse of the scenes as with our own eyes. The work is 
intensely interesting to read, and of the greatest value to the historical student."— 
N. Y. Independent. 

"Of the great value of the work we have already spoken. It not only enab\es 
the world for the first time to understand clearly the objects for which Prince Metter- 
nich contended throughout his long public life, but casts fresh light on some of the 
most obscure historical incidents of his day." — The Atkenceum. 

" The Memoirs of Metternich are to be heartily welcomed oy all who are inter- 
ested either in the serious facts or the lighter gossip of history. There is no period, 
indeed, in recent history, more important or attractive than that covered by the first 
volume of these memoirs." — Boston Literary World. 



*^* For sale by all booksellers^ or will be sent, prepaid, upon 
teceipt of price, by 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers, 

743 AND 745 Broadway, New York. 

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